>> >>JOANNE: Junior Seau played professional football for 20 years.
While we don't know if repeated blows to the head contributed to his death, there is evidence
that repeated concussions over time can cause what's known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy
or CTE.
Joining me to discuss CTE, how it's affecting those playing contact sports is our guest
Michael Lobatz.
Thank you for being here.
We hear a lot about traumatic brain injury, what's the difference between TBI and now
CTE?
>> >>MICHAEL LOBATZ: TBI presupposes there's a single injury to the brain and that may
be something that you recover from or it might be something that has lingering affects.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy presupposes multiple injuries to the brain and a degenerative
process that begins later in life, similar to something like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's
where people progress and worse en over time.
That's very different from a brain injury where we expect patients to have their symptoms
initially and get better over time.
>> >>JOANNE: How did experts begin to see the CTE?
>> >>MICHAEL LOBATZ: The first time we recognized it was in boxing and what we used to call
punch drunk, now also known in medicine as dementia pugilistica.
People that have had repeated blows to the brain in that boxing profession can develop
memory loss that worse ns over time and we know that their brains are abnormal in comparison
to others in a normal population.
Later, it became obvious that this might also occur in other groups such as people in professional
sports which is what one of the focuses is today in terms of the national football league.
We have a center in Boston where they're studying CTE in professional football players.
We are very interested now in the affects of the concussions that are occurring in the
military in Iraq and Afghanistan from blast injuries that might also put soldiers at eventual
risk for the development of the same thing.
>> >>JOANNE: With regard to the military, how are you seeing this manifest itself?
In terms of the men and women returning home.
>> >>MICHAEL LOBATZ: Right now the soldiers are all very young, and they're in there late
teens or 20s or early 30s.
We're noticing those that have had concussive injuries from blast injuries may have difficulties
with things like memory and concentration, personality change, headaches, dizziness and
lightheadedness, those kinds of symptoms have been reported by that group and as time has
gone by, many of them have gotten better.
But it's that group that we're very concerned about in the future.
Those that have had persistent symptoms, that might be at risk to develop this in the later
years of their life.
>> >>JOANNE: So does that mean this will just keep getting worse as you grow older or can
you stop the progression of this disease or even treat it?
>> >>MICHAEL LOBATZ: Right now we don't know the answer to those questions, we do know
that people with repeated brain injuries are at particular tbr risk for this.
If you've had multiple concussions has a boxer or football player, or been in multiple accidents
with concussions, you may find you have trouble in difficulty with processing and memory.
Those kinds of things are of particular concern to us, that's where the research is focused.
>> >>JOANNE: Are you seeing a link between CTE, and suicide and even or depression and
even suicide?
>> >>MICHAEL LOBATZ: There certainly is a link between CTE in behavioral changes.
To take the leap from CTE all the way to suicide is a very big leap because suicidal ideation
is a very complex phenomenon, one in which many different things are involved other than
just brain function itself.
It might have to do with life circumstances, financial circumstances, and changes in your
own psycho social issues.
So we do know that people that are depressed have a higher incidence of the development
of suicidal ideation and may go on to develop a plan and actually carry out suicide.
Fortunately that's in a very small percent.
You know, five percent of the population have depression in the United States.
But people with brain injuries, that depression incidence may be as high as 40Êpercent.
One things that there could be a link between all of those things.
>> >>JOANNE: We have to leave it there doctor, but we have more information including links
to other resources about this on our website kPBS.org.
Thank you so much for being here.
>> >>MICHAEL LOBATZ: Thank you.