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Subscribe to RSSA new study from researchers at Boston University School of Medicine demonstrates the strongest connection yet between routine blows to the head and severe brain damage. NBC's Rehema Ellis reports.
BOSTON -- Years of hits to the head in football or other contact sports lead to a distinct pattern of brain damage that begins with an athlete having trouble focusing and can eventually progress to aggression and dementia, a study released on Monday says.
Researchers examining the brains of 85 former athletes and soldiers who sustained multiple mild head injuries over their lives found the condition they developed, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, came in an "ordered and predictable" four-stage pattern.
The condition, which causes depression and erratic behavior, has attracted public concern in recent years following the high-profile suicides of former professional athletes.
Worries about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, have prompted youth and college football programs around the United States to take steps intended to limit the number of hits to the head athletes experience in practice and games. The National Football League has banned the most dangerous helmet-on-helmet hits.
The latest study, published in the journal Brain by researchers affiliated with Boston University School of Medicine, spells out how the condition progresses through four stages that can begin with mild memory loss, progress to cognitive failure and eventually bring on aggression.
Symptoms of stage one CTE include headache and loss of attention. Stage two sufferers may face depression, outbursts of anger and short-term memory loss. Those in stage three encounter executive dysfunction and cognitive impairment. Symptoms of the most severe fourth stage include dementia, aggression and difficulty finding words.
'Dementia pugilistica'
Researchers are now able to chart CTE's progression in the brains of dead people who had suffered from the condition originally known as "dementia pugilistica" for its occurrence in boxers. But they remain unable to diagnose it in the living.
"Until we do that, we can't fully understand the risk factors, we can't understand how common it is," said Robert Stern, a Boston University professor and co-author of the study. "The goal would be to have a variety of measures of this predictive pattern in the brain while someone is alive."
Stern said he was working on tests that would diagnose the condition early, by using magnetic resonance imaging or testing for specific proteins linked to the problem.
The research found CTE was closely linked to the number of years an athlete played football, but not directly tied to the number of concussions sustained.
That suggests a steady diet of mild hits to the head, rather than a handful of more traumatic injuries, brings on CTE, Stern said.
He cautioned the condition would not develop in all athletes and suggested that concerns about CTE should not prompt parents of young players to pull their children from the sport, though he said parents should closely monitor how the game is played.
"We don't want people to feel that they're going to get this early dementia just because they had a concussion or two," Stern said. "This is a disease of total, overall repetitive brain trauma."
On Saturday, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher shot and killed his girlfriend and then shot himself in front of the team's coach and general manager in an act that shocked fans of the National Football League. While CTE can bring on confusion, depression and violent behavior, there was no evidence Belcher's actions were related to brain injury.
Belcher was only 25 and had played in the league four seasons. Other prominent suicides involved players with longer careers including Junior Seau in May, Ray Easterling in April and Dave Duerson last year.
"An individual's suicide and aggressive behavior at such a young age is so multi-factoral, it is such a complex issue, that you can't jump to the conclusion that CTE is the cause of any individual's behavior," Stern said.
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Leave a Comment:
They needed a study to arrive at this conclusion?
Maybe they played contact sports themselves?
I had this figured out in high school without a 'study'. I went into band and my brother ended up with 2 dislocated shoulders.
PS...you can bet your bottom dollar that tax money was involved in this dumb research.
Lift weights @ the gym.
Yes, Bada Bing, they needed a study. A study provides scientific and statistical proof that a pattern is evident. Sometimes that is the only way people will listen.
So do steroids and drug cocktails.
Has anybody found a cure for cancer or AIDs yet? Can we put the dollars wasted on things that we already know toward finding the answers to the things we don't?
Waste of time, waste of money.
AIDS is a waste of time too. If you get HIV these days you are a moron who did it to yourself. Cancer, now that is a worthy cause...
Cancer is not worthy...whats the percent of cancer causes due to lifestyle? poor eating, smoking, petrochemicals, we need another study for what reason?
Wow, go tell that to some poor little 6 year old girl who is bald and fighting leukemia. Go look her parents in the eye while you BLAME HER FOR HER POOR LIFESTYLE CHOICES. Bet you don't have the nerve.
Or to MY DAD...well you can't because he's DEAD...who died at 48 from lung cancer not caused by smoking.
Or MY GRANDFATHER...who died at 72 from pancreatic cancer that had been misdiagnosed for over 2 years...what kinds of "poor lifestyle" choices causes THAT?
How insensitive can you BE?
And to the rest of you...this is a very important study. It's not as though only athletes get hit in the head and have concussions. Also, the NFL is finding out that the helmets the players now wear, while they do guard against many head and neck injuries, actually cause a lot more brain damage because while the head is held still when hit, the brain is actually rattling around inside the skull and is badly bruised as a result.
One minor problem with the article, football and wrestling are not contact sports. Contact sports are baseball, basketball, etc. Football and wrestling are collision sports where the intent is to hit/overcome the opponent with pain. A neurologist defined the terms for me and that's my version of the definition. lol
Collision sports have a place in our life, too.
But there needs to be changes to protect our kids and players of any age. Football as we know it has got to change to a more finesse game with heavy duty penalties on and off the field for certain hits. Let's have weight divisions, too for everyone on both sides of the ball. No one on the teams should be 100 lbs more than anyone else, maybe even 50 lbs.
Soccer is already making inroads, and maybe it is the beginning of the end of our football gladiators. It might take 20 years, but I think it must change to avoid lawsuits, etc.
Wrestling is not a collision sport, unless you consider WWF real wrestling...in which case you need to have your head examined for some kind of damage. Wrestling is not about putting your opponent in pain. It is agility, speed, precision, and method. Go watch a real wrestling tournament sometime and you will see what I mean...
Headballs in soccer cause mild concussions. Bob Costas is on the money about gun restriction.
Wrestling is not a contact sport at the high school and college level like football. I have wrestled and played basketball. You get more banged up in basketball with the elbowing they allow today. Wrestling is usually a controlled take down or an escape. Now football ... football should be banned for anyone under 18 and anyone with a below average IQ.
Football will eventually go away at the high school level. It's already happened at a couple of schools. The cost of insurance to protect the school district from liability is getting so high that they can't afford to have the program any more. It's the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The more evidence that comes out, the worse football looks as a viable sport for kids to play. I think it's only a matter of time....
Will SOMEONE in NBC management make sure Bob Costas reads this? Please? Hey Bob, how about we ban private ownership of footballs?
Will SOMEONE in management at NBC make sure Bob Costas reads this article? Please!
Gee, Ya think?
Football is not going anywhere. Remove the helmets, shrink and cushion the shoulderpads...and the game goes on- sans hard plastic surfaces that are used on inflict pain.
Linebacker wants to lead with his head...go ahead and get a face full of cleats.
Duh , i done plyed kontak spourts all my live and I aint got no head problums .
The same pattern of brain damage is obvious in those who watch sports. Perhaps it is the emotion invested in games rather than the contact which does the harm.
I played football in high school and college and got banged up pretty good. I have a hard time staying focused on things sometimes and suffer forgetfulness. I never got knocked out or anything severe but I got my bell rung quite a few times. Not playing this game is a good life decision.
In our schools, sports (especially contact/collision sports) have taken over to the point of being ridiculous. In our colleges, more money is thrown into the football program than into our medical and science programs.
Did anyone notice that when the funding cuts came to all of our schools, which programs were cut first? The arts. The ones that got few or no cuts. The sports. Did anyone else notice that within a very few years that violence in the schools escalated? Kids started carrying guns to school. Was it the athletes who were carrying the guns? No, it was the little art nerd, or Goth, or introvert. Many were bullied. Their ability to have an outlet (through the arts and other demeaned subjects) was rejected and ejected. The vast majority of all students were left without outlets. The most endangered or threatened lashed out.
I actually did a study on this 20 years ago (on my own dime), when the cuts were taking place. No one listened then, no one is going to listen now. Too many bowl games are coming up. However, my study showed that the dollar cuts to the arts versus to the minimal or no cuts to the sports translated to an escalation of violence within the schools.
It is interesting to see the mapping, of head injury results on the players, has in its fourth level a notation of aggression, along with many other cognitive dysfunctions. The end results are often tragic, as seen in the news. And that's why this study means something right now. Another "heroic" sports figure has committed the ultimate acts of destruction.
I suppose what it boils down to is what is important to us. For many, they live and die (literally) for the sports arena. I believe we have misplaced our values of what entertainment should comprise. And we are not the better for it.
Although this study is aimed at after-the-fact diagnosis of head injuries, it can speak in much larger and broader terms about the direction we are headed.
I guess those budding artists got violent when their programs didn't get funded. lol University of Maryland cut major sports programs last year but hung on to the money makers football and basketball.
Maryland's football and basketball profits, while positive, have plunged low. Only 69 of 120 major college football programs are making money now and Maryland is making less than $2M/year now. It's doing major studies to try to figure out how to avoid losing money on those two profit makers in the future.
Wrong...sorry guys, but wrestling is considered a collision, not a contact sport. Contact sports with incidental contact where the contact is not the intent. I agree basketball can be tough, but the intent is different. My son had a concussion from wrestling (finished #2 in the region the prior year), lost memory and was paralyzed--but recovered. He was never injured in football, but played on one championship team and he was instrumental in winning the games. He had 2 maybe 3 more concussions, one from getting hit in the head in soccer while he was looking the other way on the sidelines. No memory lost, but vomited 30 minutes later. He is still in HS and running track and swimming competitively. He misses wrestling, lacrosse, and football. Too bad, but no more collision sports for him.
Good posts - including your earlier one about weight divisions and penalties for certain types of hits. So much money is tied up in football - it truly is a gladiator sport - and it's sad that in the 21st century, we're continuing the Roman Empire saga.
I love watching football with my buds....but the human body's not made to do the things that they do. I'm afraid it will be a long, long time (not in our lifetime) before they actually do anything about it.
Bowling team?
This is not true. I have been am football playing for long times and I am feeling normal fine. Even when I hitted my head realy hard and things I still wanted to play with that squirrel that keeps coming to the front porch when I have a bag of chips. They make me thirsty. I think I just went in my pants.
Perhaps football will evolve into a game where the head is more protected and spared. My nephew, 12, plays lacrosse and I've seen the games he's played get more physical as he's gotten old. There is a lot of checking and banging the body allowed, but no high checking and you see a lot less of the head getting whacked than in football, but it is still an enjoyable game from the physical collision perspective.
So glad my son was too slight of build for football and played soccer instead!
Athletes get all this great medical care and extra attention, but we don't care that much about our mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters to invest the same amount of time and money into researching the same issues when they are connected to domestic violence. Our women are expendable but our atlete's aren't?
75% of athletes polled say keeping their “head clear” during an injury such as head trauma trauma is most of the battle to full recovery according to Dr Kevin Fleming PHD - in fact Dr Fleming helped a Super Bowl winner! His site is most interesting