Six patients from a group of 228 men from a unit of the Sleep Disorders center of the Neurology Service had been professional soccer players in the 1960s and 1970s.
The hypothesis was conclusive: Had the patients with REM sleep disorder been professional soccer players? That was the starting point of the Clínic-IDIBAPS researchers who focused on an increasingly recurring topic in professional sport: the consequences of blows to the head, or constant headers in soccer, and concussions in contact sports. The study, published in the Journal of Neurology, analyzed the characteristics of patients seen in the Clínic’s Neurology service for sleep disorders between March 1994 and March 2022. Of the 338 people seen, 228 were Spanish men and 6 of them (2.63%) had been professional soccer players in the 1960s and 1970s, between the ages of 18 and 36, and with an average of 14 active seasons. Of those six former soccer players, five went on to develop Parkinson’s or Lewy body dementia four years after the sleep disorder, 44 years after leaving soccer.
This study group was compared with a control group of 228 age-matched men, none of whom had been professional soccer players, and also with the general population. The research team led by Dr. Álex Iranzo certified that there was a higher percentage of former professional soccer players in the group of REM sleep disorders. They are patients over 50 years of age who usually move or talk during that phase of sleep in which they have nightmares under the feeling that they are being persecuted and that they want to flee.
“It has to be replicated in other hospitals around the world,” Iranzo explained about a “descriptive study, which has been done face to face” in relation to other similar ones that have been done in Sweden or Scotland, from a statistical perspective, data comparison. “We do not want to give an alarmist message, it is not a cause or a risk factor, we have established an association with our study”, stressed Dr. Iranzo. 25% of patients with this REM sleep disorder suffer a type of dementia or Parkinson’s disease at five years, the figure rises to 75% at 10, and 90% at 15.
Related news
Age, the presence of pesticides on the grass of soccer fields and repeated trauma are factors that, according to the Clínic’s neurologist, can intervene in these sleep disorders that lead to these more serious health consequences.
Doctor Gil Rodas, specialist in sports medicine, recalled that the problem “has been downplayed in the past.” And he has recalled the convenience of some prevention protocols that are gradually being imposed. For example, in soccer when in the case of a concussion or blow to the head, the referee stops the game and the doctors have three minutes to assess the extent of the injury. The also head of the medical area of the Barça Innovation Hub has also stressed the need for athletes to join up after a mishap of this type progressively to activity in the following six days. He has also pointed out that in the case of training ages it is convenient limit the number of headers during training as it has been done in England.