Heading The Ball In Soccer Results in Trauma to Both The Brain and Neck. A recent study looks at symptoms related to repetitive brain trauma from heading the soccer ball.

Soccer has been under greater scrutiny as an ever-increasing amount of evidence accumulates about the dangers of repetitive head trauma in sports. It joins the ranks of other sports that have been seen to have repetitive brain trauma like football, hockey, boxing, and MMA.

It's not simply because we are becoming too concerned with potential injuries in sports. It's a very significant issue that can have devastating consequences for sports participants.

This recent study looks at intential and unintentional head trauma in soccer as it relates to symptoms of concussion and brain trauma. No one knows at this point how much of a problem it is for these soccer players throughout their lives, but there is certainly reason for concern.

I have personally seen soccer players that have suffered significant neurological and orthopedic problems from playing. The most common that I have seen include headaches, memory problems, neck pain, significantly accelerated arthritis, cervical disc problems, among other problems.

A recent study published in the 2/1/2017, issue of Neurology found that soccer players who head the ball more often are 3X more likely to have concussion symptoms than players who head the ball less often. 

A couple of important findings…

• Soccer players who hit their heads 2 or more times in a 2 week period (heading a ball or a collision), were much more likely to demonstrate symptoms of concussion.
• 20% of those with head impacts had moderate to severe symptoms.  
• Those in the group with the most headers were 3 X more likely to have symptoms than those who had the least amount.

"Conclusions: Intentional (i.e., heading) and unintentional head impacts are each independently associated with moderate to very severe CNS (central nervous system) symptoms."

“Symptoms from repeated intentional and unintentional head impact in soccer players” Walter F. Stewart, Namhee Kim, Chloe S. Ifrah, Richard B. Lipton, Tamar A. Bachrach, Molly E. Zimmerman, Mimi Kim, and Michael L. Lipton in Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Published online 2/1/2017.

http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2017/02/01/WNL.0000000000003657