New York Times, May 31, 2007 --

The rate of diagnosed clinical depression among retired National Football League players is strongly correlated with the number of concussions they sustained, according to a study to be published today.

The study was conducted by the University of North Carolina’s Center for the Study of Retired Athletes and based on a general health survey of 2,552 retired N.F.L. players. It corroborates other findings regarding brain trauma and later-life depression in other subsets of the general population, but runs counter to longtime assertions by the N.F.L. that concussions in football have no long-term effects.

Later in the article:
While consistently defending its teams’ treatment of concussions and denying any relationship between players’ brain trauma and later neurocognitive decline, the N.F.L. has subsequently announced several related initiatives. The league and its players union recently created a fund to help pay the medical expenses of players suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or similar dementia. Last week, N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell announced wide-ranging league guidelines regarding concussions, from obligatory neuropsychological testing for all players to what he called a “whistle-blower system” where players and doctors can anonymously report any coach’s attempt to override the wishes of concussed players or medical personnel.

Mr. Goodell said last week that the league’s concussion committee had just begun its own study “to determine if there are any long-term effects of concussions on retired N.F.L. players.”

Dr. Casson, the committee’s co-chair, said that players who retired from 1986 through 1996 would be randomly approached to undergo “a comprehensive neurological examination, and a comprehensive neurologic history, including a detailed concussion history,” using player recollection cross-referenced with old team injury reports. He said that the study would take two to three years to be completed and another year to be published.

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Labels: concussion, Depression, NFL, TBI, TBI research, traumatic brain injury