Football concussions catching up with Terry Bradshaw, he says

Pittsburgh's Terry Bradshaw, left, and Dallas' Roger Staubach talk after an exhibition game in 1979.

By Thomas H. Maugh II,
Los Angeles Times
12:47 PM PDT, April 15, 2011

A series of at least six concussions incurred by Terry Bradshaw while he was the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers are beginning to interfere with his ability to carry out his current duties as a football analyst for Fox Sports, the ex-player said this week in a blog. Bradshaw said he is suffering from deficits in short-term memory and impairments in his hand-eye coordination. He is being treated at the Amen Clinic in Newport Beach, but experts fear that the best he can hope for is a slowing of the progression of the disorder rather than an improvement in function.

Bradshaw's revelations come at a time when the long-term health effects of repeated concussions have become of increasing concern to players and fans. The league has begun taking some actions to prevent concussions, including punishments for head-to-head hits, and moving up the kickoff spot to limit the number of returns, which feature some of the hardest hits in the game. Improved helmets have become available, and players who suffer a concussion during a game are required to sit out for at least the remainder of the game, but some critics charge that these efforts are still not enough.

"There is growing concern about the long-term effects of concussions" and even of head trauma that doesn't quite rise to the level of a concussion, said Dr. John DiFiori, chief of the division of sports medicine at UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine. New data are suggesting that athletes who have three or more concussions are five times as likely as other people to have mild cognitive impairment, he said. There are less data about their effect on motor functions, he added. But several studies suggest that concussions cause the deposition of a protein called tau in the brain, interfering with cellular function. What types of motor functions are affected depend on where the tau protein is deposited.

"Toward the end of last season on the Fox pregame show, maybe the last six weeks, I really started forgetting things," Bradshaw wrote. "That's why I quit reciting statistics, because I couldn't remember them exactly and I stayed away from mentioning some players by name because I really wasn't sure and I didn't want to make a mistake....I know I have depression and it's a horrible disease. This memory loss has just made my depression worse."

(More here.)