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Long-term Brain Health of Retired Professional Rugby Players, With a History of Concussion/Head Impact Exposure

NCT03544346 · Status: UNKNOWN · Type: OBSERVATIONAL · Enrollment: 200

Last updated 2018-06-01

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

There has been significant recent interest on the issue of brain health in athletes. Participation in sports is generally viewed as extremely positive. Consistent evidence supports associations among exercise, cognitive vitality, neural functioning and decreased risk of cognitive decline. However, In the last decade, a dramatic shift in both public and scientific perception around the long-term consequences of concussion is evident. Rugby is a popular full-contact sport played throughout the world at varying levels of competition, including professional level. The game exposes players to inherent risk of injury including repetitive head impacts, due to the high number of collisions and tackles involved. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the physical nature of the sport, rugby has one of the highest rates of concussion of all full-contact sports. Evidence from a recent meta-anaysis found the incidence of concussion to be 4.73 per 1000 player match hours. Given the high incidence of concussion that has been reported in the literature to date, the issue of concussion and repeated head impact exposure is of particular concern in rugby.

Comprehensive investigation of cognition in living retired sports persons with previous exposure to repetitive head impact is noticeably lacking in the literature to date. Findings are inconsistent and investigations are shrouded by consistent methodological biases and flaws, reducing the overall quality of the studies. Relatively little research has been conducted on the long-term effects of repetitive mild TBI or sports concussion on the retired athlete's brain health with ageing. The potential long-term consequences are poorly understood and warrant more research. This study aims to investigate the brain health of retired rugby players in comparison to retired rowers who have achieved the same levels of exercise, without exposure to SRCs

Conditions

  • Brain Health Retired Elite Athletes

Interventions

OTHER

Exploratory brain and general health assessment

Exploratory brain and general health assessment

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University of Dublin, Trinity College

    lead OTHER

Eligibility

Sex
MALE
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2018-06-18
Primary Completion
2018-12-15
Completion
2018-12-15

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03544346 on ClinicalTrials.gov