The weather is cooling and the nights are drawing in. Across the country, hundreds of boys and men are looking forward to a rugby season filled with match wins and after-game gatherings at the local pub.
But for some amateur and professional rugby players, there will be no more team camaraderie on the field. They can only cheer from the side-lines due to having to end their rugby careers following a series of concussions.
Unfortunately, many of these concussions were incorrectly diagnosed, resulting in long-term complications for former players.
Two former professional players, Cillian Willis and Jamie Cudmore, have recently launched legal action against their former clubs for alleged medical negligence over the handling of their respective concussion injuries. Mr Willis confirmed in August that he was taking legal action against Sale Sharks over an injury in an LV Cup game against Saracens in 2013 while Mr Cudmore claims Clermont Auvergne’s team doctors allowed him back on the field after he suffered a serious head injury against Saracens in the 2015 Champions Cup semi-final.
Is this the start of a flood of medical negligence claims against team doctors? And why are sports related concussions suddenly being taken so seriously?
Concussion and its consequences
Concussion remains the number one concern of players and rugby clubs around the world. Even countries such as New Zealand, where an All Black loss results in the stock market losing points, have been forced to take the issue of the impact of repeated concussion on players’ wellbeing seriously.
In July 2015, research funded by World Rugby over 29 months, looking at 485 men and comparing amateur and professional players with matched control groups, found a potential link between frequent concussion and brain function.
Although researchers concluded that more investigation was needed, the study showed rugby players who had suffered four or more concussions performed worse in tests measuring mental and physical coordination, motor speed and multi-tasking.
World Rugby said in a statement, “The study showed that rugby players performed above average in some tests compared to non-contact sports players and less well in others.
“It is therefore difficult to draw robust conclusions about the links between rugby and long-term cognitive health issues and highlights the need for further in-depth research”.
A dementia time-bomb
It is not only short-term cognitive damage that is concerning rugby clubs across the UK and the world. Further studies have found a link between dementia and multiple blows to the head received whilst playing contact sports such as rugby and NFL football.
Last year, Panorama: Rugby and the Brain – Tackling the Truth – was broadcast on BBC. Made by former Scotland and British Lions player, John Beattie, the programme examined the link between head injuries received in contact sports and long-term brain damage. Examinations of the brains of former NFL players in America has established that a specific form of dementia called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is present in the brains of some former players. CTE was formally believed to only affect boxers (commonly referred to in the sport as ‘punch-drunk’ syndrome), it is now known to be a progressive degenerative disease which afflicts the brain of people who have suffered repeated concussions and traumatic brain injuries.
The brain of a person who is suffering CTE gradually begins to deteriorate and lose mass. Sufferers endure loss of memory, difficulty controlling impulsive or erratic behaviour, impaired judgment, behavioural disturbances including aggression and depression, difficulty with balance, and a gradual onset of dementia.
Although these symptoms have similarities with Alzheimer’s disease, the key difference is that sufferers begin experiencing cognitive impairment much earlier, often in their 40s, cutting men down in the prime of their adult life. In addition, initial symptoms relating to Alzheimer’s involve memory problems, while the first symptoms of CTE generally affect judgment, reasoning, problem solving, impulse control, and managing aggression.
The disease may even lead to the sufferer committing suicide, as in the case of BMX rider Dave Mirra and wrestler Kostadinos Karageorge who shot himself at the tender age of 22 years.
The fault of the doctors?
In a recent article in The Telegraph, Leicester, England and Lions flanker and Headway ambassador, Lewis Moody stated:
“Maybe because of the awareness now of concussion that the number of cases of concussion will be going off the charts because people are reporting them now,” Moody said. “There will have been as many before but they were never reported because the lads just played on through it. That is the interesting part into opening our eyes to what is happening with concussion, I think, as more and more people are aware of it. You can get a headache after a game which will be reported as concussion even though there was no sign of it during the game. It would not surprise me if the stats for the number of concussions per match or per season go up significantly.”
Part of the improvement in the reporting of concussion comes from a new concussion identification system that was introduced by the RFU this year. However, many former players and those currently on the field (especially playing in Saturday morning amateur teams) did not or are not receiving proper medical attention for concussions sustained.
Unfortunately, mounting evidence is showing that there is a serious price to pay for the negligence on the behalf of medical professionals as former players advance towards middle age.
Make A Free Enquiry
At Glynns Solicitors we have the expertise required to successfully act for contact sport players who are suffering from ECT or other forms of cognitive impairment because concussions received on the sports field were not correctly diagnosed by health professionals.
Please call us free on 0800 234 3300 (or from a mobile 01275 334030) or complete our Online Enquiry Form.
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