Season › 2011-12 › News Brain damage from multiple concussion Michael Kenrick , 28 November, 29comments | Jump to most recent Could the tragic and untimely death of Gary Speed be linked to his superb skill as a header of the ball? This article on a US website raises a concern regarding the link between multiple concussions sustained in the course of a career that includes repeated impact to the head, and brain damage that can lead some professional sportsmen to commit suicide. Gary Speed was, as The Guardian noted in its obituary, ?an exceptional header of the ball.? Expertly meeting a gun shot of a cross with his forehead and guiding it in his chosen direction was one of Speed's special talents. And he demonstrated that talent for longer than almost anyone: indeed, there are only two players, Ryan Giggs and David James, who played more games in the Premier League. Although [American] football and boxing have been getting most of the attention lately, we have known for years that there is evidence of chronic traumatic brain injury in professional soccer players. Indeed, when researchers from the Netherlands looked at a population of professional soccer players in the Netherlands in 1998, the found that they: exhibited impaired performances in memory, planning, and visuoperceptual processing when compared with control subjects. Among professional soccer players, performance on memory, planning, and visuoperceptual tasks were inversely related to the number of concussions incurred in soccer and the frequency of ?heading? the ball. Performance on neuropsychological testing also varied according to field position, with forward and defensive players exhibiting more impairment. We will never know for certain why Gary Speed decided to take his own life, but my hope is that attention will be given to the possibility that the effects of his chosen profession may have contributed to his death. At present, no one is writing about the role that brain trauma might have played in the tragedy on Sunday, but maybe they should. Quotes or other material sourced from Opposing Views Reader Comments (29) Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer Add Your Comments In order to post a comment, you need to be logged in as a registered user of the site. » Log in now Or Sign up as a ToffeeWeb Member — it's free, takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your comments on articles and Talking Points submissions across the site. About these ads