Dementia is the general term for a decline in an individual’s mental abilities that affects their thinking, social skills, and memory.
For an average individual, they will face a 42% chance of developing dementia across their life. Footballers that have decent careers at any level, however face a much larger 74.1% chance of suffering from this.
At the moment heading the ball does clearly have strong links, the Alzheimer’s Research UK group believe that half of dementia cases world-wide are linked to 14 risk factors, with Traumatic brain Injury (or TBI) is the most prominent of those.
To fight this, the FA has brought in some new rules at grassroots level, some teams under certain ages have been banned from heading in games. Whilst practicing heading in training is now under strict restrictions, such as limited attempts and they must be uncontested.
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