Name:
DF-2020-008
Description:
DF-2020-008
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Duration:
T00H04M54S
Embed URL:
https://stream.cadmore.media/player/0d481812-19ef-42f6-a11f-c19555a585ca
Content URL:
https://asa1cadmoremedia.blob.core.windows.net/asset-41c005b4-c567-4f60-83bd-b316a4c882b5/An interview with Neil Pearce V4.mp4
Upload Date:
2020-03-11T15:55:09.9800000Z
Transcript:
Language: EN.
Segment:0 .
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Segment:1 Can you tell us about the BRAIN study? .
NEIL PEARCE: The BRAIN study involves former elite rugby players. These people have played for England or been Oxford or Cambridge Blues, and they're now over 50 years old. And we're inviting them to take part in the study, and we're getting detailed information in two areas. The first thing is we want to know about their playing history and their history of concussion. And we have very detailed questions, particularly about concussion history.
NEIL PEARCE: And we go into the definition of concussion and try and have a very consistent estimate of how many concussions someone has had. The second thing we do is very detailed neuropsychological tests of cognitive function. Essentially, that's a test of how well your brain's working, how alert you are. And then we're trying to relate the two. So we're saying, if we look at people who have had a lot of concussions, and people who have had a few concussions, and the people who've had no concussions, how do their cognitive function scores compare? And the idea is to see whether having had a lot of concussions affects your cognitive function score over the age of 50. We're studying about 150 former players. And we've, in fact, just completed the data collection. So we're analyzing the data now.
Segment:2 You’ve now launched the HEADING study – can you tell us about this? .
NEIL PEARCE: The HEADING study is very similar, but there's a couple of additional features.
NEIL PEARCE: With the BRAIN study, we're doing an internal comparison. So we're comparing former rugby players who have had a lot of concussions to those who have had just a few concussions or no concussions. With the HEADING study, we're doing the same thing, but we're doing two additional things. One is that we're also doing an external comparison. So we have general population data for the relevant age groups.
NEIL PEARCE: The second thing, in the HEADING study we're not only concerned about concussion. We're also concerned about heading the ball. So as well as getting a history of concussion, we're trying to get an estimate of essentially how many times the person headed the ball during their career.
Segment:3 How will you estimate heading exposure in participants? .
NEIL PEARCE: It's not easy. It's never really been done before.
NEIL PEARCE: The most obvious thing is playing history. Goalkeepers don't head the ball very often. Midfielders head the ball a lot. We will be getting a detailed playing history in terms of the positions people played, and what years they played, and what divisions they played in. And we're still working on how to put that data all together. Because ultimately for each person, we want to end up with an estimate to say, this person headed the ball a lot, this person headed the ball a smaller amount, and this person headed the ball a very small amount, and to compare those groups.
NEIL PEARCE: But we're still working on the methodology of how you combine that playing history to come up with those sort of estimates.
Segment:4 What do you expect to find? .
NEIL PEARCE: If I knew the answers, it wouldn't be research. We really have no idea what we're going to find. We might find there's no problem. We might find there's a large problem, and that there's big deficits in cognitive function in people who have had a lot of concussions.
NEIL PEARCE: We might find something in between. And whatever we find might apply to all the participants or it might just be particular age groups. It might be that it's only when you get into the older age groups you start to realize a problem. At this stage, we just don't know, which is what research is about.
Segment:5 How can ex-players get involved?.
NEIL PEARCE: We're not looking for volunteers, because people who volunteer often do that for a reason.
NEIL PEARCE: Maybe they've got a problem with cognitive function or they had a lot of concussions. What we're trying to do is to get a random or representative sample of the former players in this age group. So with the BRAIN study, we've been working with the Rugby Football Union and with the University of Oxford (UK), who previously studied the Oxford and Cambridge Blues, and they had comprehensive lists.
NEIL PEARCE: And we've worked off those lists and invited everyone who is eligible. With the HEADING study, we're working with the FA and the PFA, the Professional Footballers' Association, and inviting people from their membership lists. So like I said, we're not looking for volunteers. But if we do contact you, either by letter or by email, it would be fantastic if people were willing to participate and help with the research.
NEIL PEARCE: [MUSIC PLAYING]
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