New Study Examines Brain Injury in Football Players

CHICAGO (AP) — Research on 202 former football players found evidence of a brain disease linked to repeated head blows in nearly all of them, from athletes in the National Football League, college and even high school. It's the largest update on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a debilitating brain disease that can cause a range of symptoms including memory loss. The report doesn't confirm that the condition is common in all football players; it reflects high occurrence in samples at a Boston brain bank that studies CTE. Many donors or their families contributed because of the players' repeated concussions and troubling symptoms before they died. "There are many questions that remain unanswered," said lead author Dr. Ann McKee, a Boston University neuroscientist. "How common is this" in the general population and all football players? "How many years of football is too many?" and "What is the genetic risk? Some players do not have evidence of this disease despite long playing years," she noted. It's also uncertain if some players' lifestyle habits — alcohol, drugs, steroids, diet — might somehow contribute, McKee said. Dr. Munro Cullum, a neuropsychologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, emphasized that the report is based on a selective sample of men who were not necessarily representative of all football players. He said problems other than CTE might explain some of their most common symptoms before death â...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Patient Care News Source Type: news