Rob Nichol: NZ Rugby Players Association CEO on the new brain health screening service for rugby players

New Zealand now has access to a brain health screening service - lauded by a former All Black - designed to identify and support those with dementia and other cognitive issues.

All professional rugby players, no matter their age or stage, encounter brain health concerns attached to concussions or repeat head knocks.

A new online test, designed by medical experts and rolled out by World Rugby in Ireland, Australia, Wales and South Africa has now been launched in New Zealand.

NZ Rugby Players Association CEO Rob Nichol says these tests are incredibly thorough - and these results are sent over to experts to set up potential appointments. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, a new tool has been launched to help current
and former rugby players diagnose whether they have brain injuries
from head knocks. The New Zealand Rugby Players Association and
World Rugby and New Zealand Rugby have launched the Brain
Health Service. It's going to collect brain injury data, connect
people with doctors to get a clearer indication of symptoms.
Rob Nickel is the CEO of the Players Association.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hey Rob, good afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
So how does this work? Is a player s that
sound in front of the computer and just answers a
bunch of questions.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, and look I've actually done it, so I can
talk first time experience here. But you basically you do.
You go online, you register and then you go through
a series of questions that you answer. It takes around
about thirty minutes. I have to say it's incredibly thorough,
not unlike the questions you would answer if you went
to a proper in person europsychologists. Assessment covers all aspects

(00:50):
of I guess, your history associated with contact sports, but
more importantly your sleep, your mood, your alcohol, smoking, all
the kind of screen things you would expect if you're
doing a sort of a well rounded screen health check
on someone really thorough, and then that report itself goes
off to a neuropsychologist who assesses it and also an

(01:12):
algorithm that has been developed that assesses it as well,
and those results are compared, rationalized and then sent sent
on to a neuropsychologist for you to have an appointment with.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
And then what does neuropsychologists do with that information once
they've got the appointment booked.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, and this is the part that's a little bit daunting,
because you've got to sit in a one on one
zoom call basically or a video call, and you go
through a series of eleven different tests. It takes about
thirty minutes. You've got to really concentrate, you can't be distracted,
and you go through those tests and they're all the
kind of people will be familiar with accounting numbers two, five,

(01:53):
eight and then backwards type thing. But there's also diagrams
as memory recall. It's all the different modes that you
would expect to be toted on. You complete that test
over a Paier to thirty minutes, and then those results
are taken off and assessed. It's important to note actually
all these assess are developed by independent expert bodies, so
not developed by World Rugby or ourselves or anything. They're

(02:14):
all world renowned best practice. And then those tests are assessed,
a report is prepared, and then that's sent back to
yourself and your general practitioner or your family health provider
depending on which country and which terminology you used. And
then you are prompted and your support person is prompted
to make sure you make an appointment with your general practitioner,

(02:35):
go sit down and go through the test results. And
the test results cover where you're at from I guess
a neuro health or a brain health perspective as much
as anything. Whether it's a dementia screening tool, and it's
an advanced form of dementia screening, but it also really
importantly in something we find really beneficial. It's a general

(02:56):
health screening process. So when you go to your GP,
you'll get the blood pressure checks, et cetera, et cetera.
So we can see a lot of benefits for anyone
frankly doing this kind of thing, but for our professional
player base it's awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
So predominantly the point is to figure out, if you're
not playing anymore, whether you are actually at risk of
getting dementia. But if you are playing, whether you need
to really think seriously about whether you can handle any
more head knocks?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Right, Well, the starting point is for those that are
currently playing. It's a great way to get an independent
baseline assessment or where you're at from a euro or
a brain health perspective. But it's also a fantastic education tool,
so it emphasizes there's fourteen different modes. They basically say
your factors that can impact on brain health, you from sleep, smoking,

(03:40):
drinking excess way to all that sort of stuff. So
you get a really good education session on if you
want to look after your brain health, whether you're official
athlete or not. He goes all the ways and things
that you should be conscious of, and doing that is
the thing probably Asia thirty forty that's really important.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
If you're a rugby plan now, if you're a rugby
plan now, or even if you're a retired rugby right,
with all the chat that we've got about head injuries
and stuff, shouldn't these guys already be doing this stuff themselves.
And if they are already doing this stuff themselves, this
announcement from you guys, I mean a cynic would say
you're just doing this to look like you're doing something
because yet the legals are coming at Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
No, well I'm in Paramphathect. The league was aren'coming at us,
So we're not doing it for that reason. We just
want to You know, we've got a lot of players
that have played first class theropy in this country and
if all of them were to somehow be made an
appointment with the neuropsychologists and done a proper in personal
assessment in New Zealand, I think we'd overrun the industry.
So this is a really smart way for the future

(04:37):
to be able to allow players to go in at
the screening level and be rated. They've done one hundred
and eighty players so far in Ireland, Wales, Pubdominantly Island
and Wales, a little bit in Scotland and South Africa
and now ourselves. And of those one hundred and eighty,
I think you're talking low single figures in terms of
the ones that have required follow up, follow up intensive tree,

(05:00):
so which is about the rate of the general population.
I think something to note here here there is where
we get the concussion and we get the head injury
side of contact sport, and we know there's so much
research out there and information out there, but none of
it kind of makes sense, and from a player's leans,
it's really confusing. And when yousented with something like that,

(05:21):
that causes anxiety and it plays on your mind. It's
just the reality of it. If you've had a career
in professional rugby and you're reading all the stuff that's
out there at all contradicts, it's all over the show,
it's hard to make sense of and that breeds some anxiety.
What we have here is we have a mechanism where
the player can take back a bit of control, go
in and get proper top line europsychologists and assessments and

(05:44):
things like that, and get peace of mind, or modify
some of your lifestyles or whatever you might do to
give yourself a better outcome in terms of your long
term brain health. And the other point that I would make,
and this applies to everyone, dementia has been identified as
probably the number one medical and social issue the world
is facing. The rights of dementia as we age as

(06:05):
a population are going to be significant. And we've always
sort of most people if you asked to say, oh,
well you've been labeled, you've you've got dementia? Can you
do anything about it? And a number of people think
you can't, but that's not the truth. You know, what
I learned yesterday and the presentation and reading all the
material is you can reduce your risk of dementia and
the complications through each way up to fifty percent by

(06:26):
following a whole lot of common sense things around brain health.
And so we want that to be known to the
players as well. Players are really good at following programs,
They're really good at following instructions, and if it's thirty
or forty they're starting to show a little bit of
vegas or issues or are really wanting to be proactive
around managing their brain health. Out of this they'll get
a damn good inside and a whole lot of good

(06:48):
ideas of what they can do to manage it.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Rob, good to talk to you. Thank you so much
for taking the time. That is Rob Nichol, the CEO
of the Rugby Players Association.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
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