CTE & Consent

CONSENT

Well this is my first occasion on here in hope it creates some thought provoking discussion for you amazing people.

Having conducted research over a seven year period now on CTE this rare degenerative silent killer has to be taken seriously at all ages. With children from the age of 10 years old being diagnosed with this disease, we must take steps to better protect our children and all future generations.

I covered one such area on how we could possibly cater towards better protections starting with consent.

I intend on placing blogs on a full array of articles or research covering how or what we need to do to redress the balance against cognitive decline. Currently we are so far outmatched by the many variant forms of dementia related diseases, we are losing this fight, only together can we make a positive impact towards a greater future where we overtake this diseases ability to harm us.

In focusing on the brain and its ability to adapt, throughout my many blogs I will add a hidden code over a twelve-month period which will hopefully give some of you a research avenue towards breaking the code. Using those cognitive functions to assess, determine, focus, analyse. There will be a modest cash prize.

Now, you may not be aware, but consent governs what we do in our everyday lives in many of its different forms, and it’s not just athletes that have to contend with consent. From the moment we get up in a morning and decide on which brand of clothes to cover our bodies through to what breakfast food/drink brand we consent to consuming. This one word becomes such a divisive legal instrument in our everyday function It is legally questionable as to whether we could actually function without it.

Contained within my research I reviewed the issue of consent in contracts, specifically the legal premise on which athletes chooses to take part in a sporting event in knowing at least to some modest degree the extent and severity of associated risk. The fundamental issue is that no sporting contract caters for the legal premise on which a player may sustain Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy from a related injury caused through their employment role. I created the provisioning clauses that will at the very least help develop a first phase of fighting back against not only CTE but any type of variant form of dementia variant.

So what does the issue of consent mean, two options from the English dictionary reads as follows:

permission or agreement obtained from someone or something having authority or power:

to give official permission or agreement for something to happen

Essentially this could be construed in as many different ways as possible. Does a person/athlete waive their right to any associated risk from taking part in an event sporting or do they simply give away their right to safety. I would argue that consent does not simply waive a person/athletes right to safety if they agree to participate in an event sporting or otherwise. The fundamental question is that of the Health and Safety aspect of any club or regulatory body placing the necessary measures in place to provide relevant protections. If that process is not happening or taking place at least in some part along the way then there will always be an associated legal risk on which those regulators will become accountable. There are legal obligations set out in international legislation that governs what must occur in order to cater for the safety aspect of a player/person taking a decisive hit.

One avenue to address the issue of consent would be making necessary corrective actions towards contract clauses that cater for future development or provisioning clauses I call them. This means the contract caters for the eventuality a person/athlete may contract a degenerative disease such as CTE, to include taking the necessary recovery steps during their career. If you then factor in career development as a player continues their career through to retirement what happens after they leave the club they may have served all their working life. I see an awful lot that everything stops from a club perspective, I have to ask why though. If a player has retired and served that club or country with distinction would it not make sense to offer a lifelong gym membership to that retiree to do nothing more than continue to take part in physical exercise in a social environment. The beneficial impact from this aspect alone would have significant positive impact towards making another step in fighting back against cognitive decline.

One avenue I considered is that a consent provisioning clause caters for both parties, one in giving the consent to taking part in an event and the other in providing access to services after the events as part of a health and safety recovery process. This protects player and club or association at the very basic level and should prevent legal challenges at least on a club/player level.

Consent to taking part in an event does not negate the legal fact that measures should be taken towards protecting against development of any type of cognitive disease. Unless the necessary developments take place within firms/clubs/associations there will always be a legal issue raised that will ultimately lead towards large class actions against the regulatory bodies.

So how do we address the issue, well, I created what I call provisioning, that will at the very minimum raise consideration towards clauses been included within a contract for future loss impact and affect. I believe one of the fundamental issues when people retire from the sporting arena is they are simply let go and left to their own devices. I believe it should be the case that clubs, associations, should cater for supporting the professionals after they leave with social interactions and gym. Even continual training with the club’s players just not at the intensive level as they were previously accustomed to. A plan would need to be created for a gradual reduction in that physical training regimen that would not be as much of a stress impact on the mental health side as an immediate cut off and goodbye from the club would.

The mental health support gleaned from this aspect would have massive considerable positive lift for any person that may feel they have underlying CTE symptoms as identified within my research. Therefore a phased gradual less intensive physical gym requirement should be considered for retiring players/athletes. Further evidence of the scientific correlation found here Social relationships, mental health and wellbeing in physical disability: a systematic review (nih.gov)

What do I hope you take away from this, the provisioning requirement in a contract catering towards development of CTE, symptoms or the actual disease directly and what you can do to fight back one step at a time. You would also benefit from negotiating with your employer for that mental health and gym support after retirement. Historically we have always let people go with little or no afterthought towards how they would cope after such a huge domestic impact as not doing what they have done every day for their entire life.

Thanks for reading, please come back for my other important posts on how we can fight back against cognitive dysfunction and dementia related disease.

Fighting back together one small step at a time in the right direction