Thursday, October 1, 2009

Former Players Face Obstacles When Filing Dementia Claims With N.F.L. - NYTimes.com

Former Players Face Obstacles When Filing Dementia Claims With N.F.L. - NYTimes.com

For the past decade, Brent Boyd, a former N.F.L. lineman who began experiencing memory loss and dementia-related symptoms in his 40s, has received relatively low payments from the National Football League’s disability plan because the plan-appointed doctor concluded that football “could not be organically responsible for all or even a major portion” of his condition.

Boyd is not alone: other retirees have found that the league’s disability plan, run jointly with the players union, is not structured to consider dementia to be an occupational risk.

But debate over that approach might intensify now that a study commissioned by the N.F.L. found that dementia-related diseases appear to have been diagnosed in the league’s retirees vastly more often than in the national population. ...

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