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http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news;_ylt=AuaxVSeNiTViYGHF7k037645nYcB?slug=nc-nhl_depression_belak_boogaard_rypien_cotsonika_090111
Research has shown that depression is more common among elite athletes than the general population and even more common among elite athletes after retirement, according to a leading sports neurologist. NHL enforcers face a unique set of stressors.
?What I am most concerned about is, take somebody who is depressed, has a problem with depression, has admitted it, is trying to find help, and they are inundated with messages from the media that they are going to have a dementing illness and they?re doomed to a terrible fate,? Jeffrey Kutcher said Thursday near his office at the University of Michigan. ?What do you think is going to happen to people who are depressed? They?re going to be more likely to take their life.?
?The cause is debatable and arguable, and we?re doing research here. I hope in 10 and 12 years I can tell you, ?Here?s the risk of your average 10-year-old starting football getting depressed or having problems.? I can?t tell you that now. In the meantime, let?s not make assumptions we don?t know about and let?s treat the problem.?
The early symptoms of depression include trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, loss of desire, aches and pains. They can descend into loss of self-worth and worse. Even a person who seems happy on the outside, as Belak apparently did, can be tormented on the inside and unable to cope.
?And so the only avenue starts coming around to hopelessness, which ends up saying, ?People will be better off without me. I?m in the way. I?m not doing my job. I?m not good,? ? said Eric Hipple, an outreach coordinator at the University of Michigan Depression Center. ?And so death becomes an answer.?
Elite athletes face the pressure to perform and the constant evaluation from peers, superiors and the public ? pressure they have often experienced since a young age. They experience pain ? physical pain that leads to mental pain. ?You take anybody off the street and give them 10 years of chronic pain,? Kutcher said. ?Ask them if they?re depressed.?
That leads to more drug use than the general population, in the form of pain killers. Mix in a lifestyle that includes lonely life on the road. Add alcohol and recreational drugs. Now consider the culture of machismo. ?In the sporting community, you don?t talk about anything that can be perceived as a weakness,? Hipple said. ?And so when things are happening ? you just suppress all that stuff, because nothing gets in the way of the mission, which is to be on the field of play.?
Then there is retirement. Hipple said it can be ?devastating? ? loss of identity, loss of connections to teammates, loss of support network. Said Kutcher: ?If you define your self-worth based on statistics and playing sports, and you?ve been doing that your whole life, and that?s taken away from you, you either have to be able to adjust to that or be able to replace that in some way.? The roar of the crowd is difficult to replace.
All of this is amplified for NHL enforcers. Their anguish is well-documented ? the feeling in the pits of their stomachs before a fight, that they aren?t valued as much as skill players, that they have to fight to stay in the game. Enforcers are expected to be even tougher than usual, and indeed they are often clinging to their jobs. That can make it easier to slip into depression and harder to seek help.
?It?s a tremendous burden, for sure,? Kutcher said. ?That alone is going to cause significant depression at a much higher rate than people who don?t do that job. ? Obviously the big stars are more able to be injured than the guys who might be on the cusp. It?s that chunk of people, the ones that are on the cusp, on the fringe, that probably need a little more attention.?
Suicide has struck all over sports in recent months, claiming several current and former elite athletes...pitcher Mike Flanagan, U.S. Olympic aerial skier Jeret ?Speedy? Peterson, pitcher Hideki Irabu, former Duke basketball captain Thomas Emma; Austrian
Olympic judoka Claudia Heill, former Pro Bowl safety Dave Duerson... former San Jose Sharks farmhand Tom Cavanagh.
Kutcher cautioned that monitoring the brain is more complicated than monitoring the body and that there is the lingering stigma of mental illness. Hipple said the approach has to change. Tell an athlete he needs help, and he might take it as a personal attack. Tell him someone can help him improve his performance, and he might be open to the idea.
?We?ve got to treat the first symptoms starting out instead of waiting until the symptoms are so bad this is the decision they make,? Hipple said. ?These things are normal. There are ups and downs. People do suffer from mood disorders, and if you do, they?re easily treatable. So let?s get the treatment and let?s work with it.?
Research has shown that depression is more common among elite athletes than the general population and even more common among elite athletes after retirement, according to a leading sports neurologist. NHL enforcers face a unique set of stressors.
?What I am most concerned about is, take somebody who is depressed, has a problem with depression, has admitted it, is trying to find help, and they are inundated with messages from the media that they are going to have a dementing illness and they?re doomed to a terrible fate,? Jeffrey Kutcher said Thursday near his office at the University of Michigan. ?What do you think is going to happen to people who are depressed? They?re going to be more likely to take their life.?
?The cause is debatable and arguable, and we?re doing research here. I hope in 10 and 12 years I can tell you, ?Here?s the risk of your average 10-year-old starting football getting depressed or having problems.? I can?t tell you that now. In the meantime, let?s not make assumptions we don?t know about and let?s treat the problem.?
The early symptoms of depression include trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, loss of desire, aches and pains. They can descend into loss of self-worth and worse. Even a person who seems happy on the outside, as Belak apparently did, can be tormented on the inside and unable to cope.
?And so the only avenue starts coming around to hopelessness, which ends up saying, ?People will be better off without me. I?m in the way. I?m not doing my job. I?m not good,? ? said Eric Hipple, an outreach coordinator at the University of Michigan Depression Center. ?And so death becomes an answer.?
Elite athletes face the pressure to perform and the constant evaluation from peers, superiors and the public ? pressure they have often experienced since a young age. They experience pain ? physical pain that leads to mental pain. ?You take anybody off the street and give them 10 years of chronic pain,? Kutcher said. ?Ask them if they?re depressed.?
That leads to more drug use than the general population, in the form of pain killers. Mix in a lifestyle that includes lonely life on the road. Add alcohol and recreational drugs. Now consider the culture of machismo. ?In the sporting community, you don?t talk about anything that can be perceived as a weakness,? Hipple said. ?And so when things are happening ? you just suppress all that stuff, because nothing gets in the way of the mission, which is to be on the field of play.?
Then there is retirement. Hipple said it can be ?devastating? ? loss of identity, loss of connections to teammates, loss of support network. Said Kutcher: ?If you define your self-worth based on statistics and playing sports, and you?ve been doing that your whole life, and that?s taken away from you, you either have to be able to adjust to that or be able to replace that in some way.? The roar of the crowd is difficult to replace.
All of this is amplified for NHL enforcers. Their anguish is well-documented ? the feeling in the pits of their stomachs before a fight, that they aren?t valued as much as skill players, that they have to fight to stay in the game. Enforcers are expected to be even tougher than usual, and indeed they are often clinging to their jobs. That can make it easier to slip into depression and harder to seek help.
?It?s a tremendous burden, for sure,? Kutcher said. ?That alone is going to cause significant depression at a much higher rate than people who don?t do that job. ? Obviously the big stars are more able to be injured than the guys who might be on the cusp. It?s that chunk of people, the ones that are on the cusp, on the fringe, that probably need a little more attention.?
Suicide has struck all over sports in recent months, claiming several current and former elite athletes...pitcher Mike Flanagan, U.S. Olympic aerial skier Jeret ?Speedy? Peterson, pitcher Hideki Irabu, former Duke basketball captain Thomas Emma; Austrian
Olympic judoka Claudia Heill, former Pro Bowl safety Dave Duerson... former San Jose Sharks farmhand Tom Cavanagh.
Kutcher cautioned that monitoring the brain is more complicated than monitoring the body and that there is the lingering stigma of mental illness. Hipple said the approach has to change. Tell an athlete he needs help, and he might take it as a personal attack. Tell him someone can help him improve his performance, and he might be open to the idea.
?We?ve got to treat the first symptoms starting out instead of waiting until the symptoms are so bad this is the decision they make,? Hipple said. ?These things are normal. There are ups and downs. People do suffer from mood disorders, and if you do, they?re easily treatable. So let?s get the treatment and let?s work with it.?
