Ian Roberts’ lends voice to fight to end stigma around concussions
One Townsville doctor, and a former North Queensland Cowboys captain, have teamed up to better educate local sport about the reality of concussions. Here’s why.
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For 12 years, Ian Roberts threw his body into the line without hesitation. Through bone-crunching tackles, high-speed collisions and daring runs, he became one of rugby league’s most feared enforcers of the 90s, and he never took a backwards step.
Now, two decades on from the end of his playing career, the former North Queensland Cowboys captain and Manly Sea Eagles legend is facing up to a hard truth.
No matter how hard he tries, or how much he leverages the peerless work ethic that saw him named Dally M Prop of the Year three times in his career, he will likely never quite be the same man he once was.
The realisation came slowly at first; a few misremembered lines at an acting audition here and a few missing minutes there, but it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t just growing older.
“One time, I was driving my car and the next moment, it felt like I was right back at home, but a couple of hours had passed in between,” Roberts said.
“Another time, I was in my bedroom and the same thing happened, a couple of hours passed and I was in the kitchen and I’d showered and I couldn’t remember any of it. That was when I started to worry.”
When he returned to Australia from the US, he participated in a battery of tests that confirmed that what he was experiencing was the result of brain damage brought on by the concussions he’d experienced during his playing days.
At that point, and facing down the reality of what it could potentially mean for his future, Roberts threw himself into a different battle; this one focused on studies of the brain and the rapidly evolving scientific understanding of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and similar conditions that develop after repeated concussive trauma to the brain.
“I’ve been open to having any sorts of resources or any clinical studies I can be involved in, I’ve just put my hand up, mate,” Roberts said.
“I think information’s the best thing and I don’t know if it’s a placebo effect, but doing cognitive testing and training and I do feel better for doing that.”
It’s a journey that’s carried Roberts’ voice all the way back to his former home of Townsville, where he played out the final year of his regular club season.
There, Dr Sarah Kleinman has been working to educate the community about the health impacts of a variety of issues through her appearances on Triple M’s Everything Townsville Listnr podcast where she hosts ‘Health Chats with Dr Sarah’.
An avid sports fan and local GP, Dr Kleinman’s son plays for local Rugby Union side the North Ward Sandcrabs.
“I’m a very proud rugby union mum and there’s so many positives for contact sports, my son’s just blossomed and blossomed through it,” Dr Kleinman said.
“There are a lot of things that I was aware of now as a parent that I wanted other parents to be aware of as well when it came to looking after their children’s health and preventing harm and being such a strong rugby league town, a strong netball town, a strong defence town, I wanted people who might have had hard knocks or head trauma through the years to be aware of their own health.
“I wanted them to be able to make good choices about their bodies and to have the right words to go and actually speak to the doctors about concerns that they might have.”
To that end, Roberts appeared as a guest on one of the podcast’s most recent episodes, talking about the stigma around head injuries, and how important it is to adopt effective prevention methods.
Dr Kleinman said that while significant strides had been made in player safety and local sporting codes had implemented good measures in order to protect players, there was still more to do.
“I still regularly see parents who come in wanting me to sign early return to the field forms for their children because they’re worried that they’ll miss out on opportunities because of the head-knock rules that stand them down for two weeks,” she said.
That ignorance, and a macho attitude among more senior players, is something Dr Kleinman and Roberts both hope to stop.
Roberts said that there was no need for players at any level to ignore the signs their body was giving them, or to hide from a diagnosis.
To that end, the pair have urged competitors across all sporting codes, and all ages, to listen to their bodies, rest after any head-knocks and listen to the professional’s advice.
“This shouldn’t be an awkward conversation to have with people. People shouldn’t feel like they’re going to get judged, it just shouldn’t be about that,” Roberts said.
“This is f--king real. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. No one’s any lesser because they’ve got a medical situation.
“There’s nothing wrong with admitting you need help. Any sort of head trauma is a major injury. It’s like breaking your leg or your ankle. That happens and you treat it appropriately.
“It feels sometimes like we’re still just stepping out of the darkness with this stuff.”
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