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May 21, 2001
U.S. Soccer Foundation funds major medical study
of the effects of heading the ball on soccer players' cognitive functions
The U.S. Soccer
Foundation completed its sixth annual grant process by awarding nearly
$2 million to 47 groups nationwide, headlined by a $106,000 award to fund
a major medical study of the effects of heading the ball on soccer players'
cognitive functions.
The five-year study will be undertaken by the U.S. Soccer Federation and
its medical professionals.
"Our grants committee and our Board of Directors were both very concerned
that such a study be undertaken," said Foundation Chairman
James D. Hamilton. "As everyone knows, the heading issue receives a great
deal of publicity, but the worldwide research to date is not
complete; this study will follow the same athletes for five years, charting
their medical histories rather than simply comparing soccer
athletes to other groups. This type of longitudinal study will producesignificant
medical data which we think will quell the debate," said
Hamilton.
The scientific study will be managed by the Federation's Sports Medicine
department and spearheaded by University of North Carolina
Orthopedic Clinical Assistant Professor Donald Kirkendall. Prof. Kirkendall
has reviewed more than 50 studies that have been done during
the past half century and has found that there is not a direct linkage
between head injury and purposeful heading of the ball.
"In purposeful heading, where you're actually trying to head the ball
and actually do make contact, the impact is spread out over the
whole body because your head is fixed to your body by a tensed neck,"
says Dr. Kirkendall. "We do not see head injuries coming from
purposeful heading. "The
most common method of sustaining head injuries in a game is from contact
with another player, or head contact with the ground or very rarely head
to goalpost contact. The resulting injury is from the impact of the contact,
not from heading the ball," Dr. Kirkendall says.
The heading study
will involve every player on the UnitedStates youth national teams (U16,
U17, U18, U20, U23 men; U16, U18, U21
women). They each will fill out a detailed questionnaire on their injury
history over the previous year with a special focus on head injuries.
Under the supervision of the chief medical officers of the Federation,
each player will complete a series of cognitive function tests, and all
of this data will be collected for five years.
"The bottom line
is that purposeful heading does not seem to be a factor in cognitive problems
that have been frequently mentioned.
It's the head injuries, the concussions," Dr. Kirkendall added."Our hypothesis
is that diminution of cognitive function comes from
head injury, not simply heading the ball," says U.S. Soccer Federation
Secretary General Dan Flynn. "By gathering all this data, we can follow
the patterns of individual athletes over time, a type of study that has
not been done anywhere in the world."
The heading study, while the largest single grant recipient, was just
one of the programs and capital field development initiatives funded during
the grant cycle. In all, 24 groups received funds for programming, most
of them aimed at inner-city soccer or at providing
opportunities for the physically and mentally challenged. An additional
24 organizations received monies to help in the
development of new fields, viewed by the Foundation as one of the most
critical issues facing soccer today. The money will affect the
development and maintenance of nearly 200 fields in the United States,
more than 100 of which will be new in their local communities.
"We have made a substantial
philosophical commitment to underwriting field development," commented
Hamilton after the Board of
Directors approved the grants at a meeting here this weekend. "The game
has grown so quickly that the need for playing fields has far
outstripped the community resources available, including our own. Butwe
will give as much as we can and work with local groups to find
public-private partnerships to address this critical issue of recreational
and competition fields in our cities and towns."
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