Study- Soccer not damaging soccer players' brains

WASHINGTON -- Concussions from heading a soccer ball or running into another player won't keep a young athlete from learning, researchers say.

A study of high-level college soccer players who were in the sport since childhood finds that having had more concussions does not impair scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test or on research tests of thinking ability.

Some earlier studies had found soccer players scored lower on tests of memory and planning ability. And one doctor who did not take part in the new study says the latest report still leaves the issue unsettled. However, the new study's researchers feel confident in their conclusion.

"The overwhelming majority of U.S. soccer players -- that being those at the youth, junior high and high school levels -- would appear to be at no greater risk for these impairments than the average person," according to the report in the March issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

The study was done at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and focused on Chapel Hill students. The researchers looked at 240 students at the start of their freshman or sophomore years, among them 91 soccer players and 96 athletes in other sports. The other students were on no team.

Students questioned

Researchers had the students complete questionnaires on sports they had played. The students also reported on blows to the head that resulted in such concussion symptoms as blurred vision, difficulty remembering or difficulty concentrating. To be sure the head injury answers were accurate, reports were crosschecked against available medical records.

The researchers also reviewed the students' SAT scores, and gave them six mental function tests covering such areas as the ability to concentrate, find objects on a page, and remember and use words and numbers.

The soccer players averaged more than 15 seasons of play. Almost half reported one or more concussions, compared with 29 percent of non-soccer athletes and 15 percent of nonathletes. When injuries directly related to soccer were excluded, all the students had about the same number of concussions.

However, the higher rate of injuries from soccer didn't seem to affect thinking abilities, the researchers say. SAT scores and results of the thinking ability tests were equivalent in all three groups.

Should relieve fears

The findings should relieve parents' fears that their children will suffer brain damage if they bang heads with another player or head the soccer ball, says researcher Kevin Guskiewicz of UNC Chapel Hill.

Guskiewicz notes the possibility that Chapel Hill's SAT and grade point average requirements for admission could have weeded out soccer players who did suffer brain damage. But he says preliminary data from an ongoing study of high school students also finds no evidence that soccer damages thinking ability.

However, an outside expert says the report could not be considered the final word. Dr. Reginald Washington of Denver, who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics' sports medicine committee, stands by the academy's March 2000 statement that the risks of permanent cognitive impairment are not yet known.