Pain, glory, concussion: former AFL players and their families speak out about league inaction

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Unable to live normal lives due to brain injuries sustained on the field, some ex-athletes are asking: where is the support?

. That undertaking is still in place, and privacy laws prevent the regulator from disclosing why the undertaking was given.“It’s mind-boggling,” the player says. “For such a big enterprise … if you want to know how to handle it, just fucking ask the people who are going through it. It’s that simple.

A big piece of that long-term puzzle is CTE, the progressive and fatal brain disease which can only be diagnosed by autopsy. But signs of its presence in life include a range of symptoms, such as behavioural changes, mental health issues, impulse control problems, memory loss and other cognitive impairment along with degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and epilepsy.suffer from such severe memory loss they can no longer operate normally in life.

“In 2014 they said that I was like an anomaly compared to the other players that they tested in that I had scars on my brain. And I wasn’t a heavy drinker or drug user. But I wouldn’t be able to say the same [now] – my life’s deteriorated a lot since then.rocked me pretty big. I was just, like, it’s very similar symptoms to what I’ve got. I’ve done about four weeks’ work all this year. The most I’ve worked in a week is probably 15 hours.

“If you’re out there saying how you’ve got real issues with concussion and stuff like that, it’s difficult to get a job,” he says. “It’s not in their best interests to be going out there saying they’ve been knocked out 10 times and they’re not feeling well all the time.” He is one of a number of former players to have had their brains tested through a 2013 Deakin University study which found memory, reflexes and muscle coordination could all be impaired by concussive and sub-concussive impacts.

“I asked, ‘You have an injury and hardship fund as part of the alumni, how do you access that?’” she says. “And they said, ‘Well, that’s only for people who are absolutely broke, and most of them have mental health issues, they’ve had to be institutionalised or they have drug addictions’. That was the response.

 

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They know the risks, keep playing regardless. Then at the end complain

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