all of these people have one thing in common they're all at risk for CTE
chronic traumatic encephalopathy a brain disease caused by repetitive hits to the
head it can be deadly it's much more common than people here are the facts
chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a progressive neurodegenerative brain
disease that means symptoms don't begin until years after the injuries and can
often get worse over time causing dementia and here's the kicker you can
only find out if you had it if you are dead when your head gets hit nerve cells
are damaged and a protein called tau gets released repeated hits to the head
lead to more towel when nerve cells are damaged tau comes often starts clumping
up becoming tangled tau can kill brain cells if enough builds up over time high
levels of Talon brain fluid are linked to poor recovery and neuro degeneration
after head trauma the origins of the disease trace back nearly a century ago
when it was labeled pugilistic dementia a syndrome that was originally studied
in boxers forensic pathologist dr. harrison stanford Martland described the
disease in 1928 through his study a journal of the American Medical
Association he noted tremors slowed movement confusion and speech problems
being typical of the condition the disease was brought up again in 1949 via
British neurologist who published a study in a paper titled punch-drunk
syndrome chronic traumatic encephalopathy of boxers but it later
became clear that the disease was appearing in athletes who never donned a
pair of boxing gloves
ZTE appeared in the limelight in the early 2000s when Nigerian neuro
pathologist Bennet Omalu worked on a case with former Hall of Fame NFL player
Mike Webster who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers after retirement
Webster began to show signs of depression extreme mood swings and
eventually dementia footage from the documentary League of denial shows
Webster being interviewed in stopping mid-sentence the things we do to one
another ok hell I don't know what I'm saying I'm just tired you're confused
right now that's why I say I can't really I can't say it the way I want to
say it I get if I could sack it answered it's really easy at other times but
right now I'm just tired Webster had CTE and was the first NFL player diagnosed
with the degenerative brain disease AMA Lou's discovery led researchers to study
the potential link of brain trauma in football in CTE further in 2017 neuro
pathologist Ann McKie released her own study in the Journal of American Medical
Association McKee and her researchers studied a hundred and eleven former NFL
players whose brains were donated for research and discovered that a hundred
and ten of them had CTE we're really I'm starting to understand the earliest
manifestations of this disease and of course our main objective our
overarching goal is to help the people that are living be able to diagnose this
disease during life so we can bring some hope and optimism to these people if we
can diagnose it we can also monitor it and we can test different therapies to
see if they're effective in treating the disease in the early stages of CTE
researchers found the most common cause of death among those with mild levels of
CTE was suicide one of the highest profile examples was the case of Aaron
Hernandez a former New England Patriots star who was convicted of first-degree
murder in 2013 he murdered Odin Lloyd a former friend who dated Hernandez's
fiancee sister guilty of murder in the first degree
Madame foreperson committed to the MC I've seen her Junction for the term of
your natural life I knew is gonna have to do because you just don't get that
amount of damage without seeing that changes under the microscope and while
in prison Hernandez committed suicide for those in
later stages dementia and Parkinson's disease was the leading cause of death
and it's estimated that you know the average football player gets between
hundreds to a thousand hits per season if you played for ten years you can
imagine that's ten thousand hits that's what we're trying to get more awareness
about we need to limit the amount of contact in football and collision sports
among 27 participants that were found to have mild CTE 26 had behavioral or mood
issues before their deaths of the 84 disease players with more severe cases
89% had behavioral or mood symptoms we're over 500 brains I think it's about
550 at this point it may not be quite that many and we're well over 360 with
the diagnosis of CTE it's not just professional athletes or military
soldiers that are being affected younger athletes are at risk for long-term
consequences for later in life scientists have found that on average
playing tackle football before the age of 12 we do to cognitive issues thirteen
point three nine years earlier behavioral and mood problems would arise
thirteen point two eight years earlier for those who began to play at twelve or
older not only are young individuals at the forefront of CTE research animals
prone to brain injuries are also being studied as well Gregory Meyer director
of research in Sports Medicine at Cincinnati's Children's Hospital Medical
Center offered his take in this New York Times article bighorn sheep rammed their
heads into each other and woodpeckers slammed their head against trees
thousands of times a day Myers research has suggested that both
of these animals brains are well protected against concussions due to a
phenomenon called the bubble wrap effect. "Their brains are naturally protected
with mechanisms that slow the return of blood from the hedge to the body
increasing blood volume that fills their brains vascular tree." outside of football
other sports have introduced concussion protocols they're designed to keep
players who may have sustained a traumatic brain injury from returning to
the game and players no longer practice as much in
pads during the week and during training camp so the NFL has changed rules in
terms of where a player can be hit whether you can use your head as a
battering ram and you no longer can but that used to be a staple of NFL defenses
while safety reforms have been made to player concussion NFL officials and
college football coaches have often been criticized for questioning the research
between football and CTE it's clear that there is a link so why they're denying
it I don't know but there will come a time hopefully sooner rather than later
that we will have a living diagnosis and at that point leagues will no longer be
able to say oh we're you know we still need more science the science will be
there legislators across the US have offered bills that would ban tackle
football before the age of 12 but they seen little traction becoming law and
well the push for legislation comes as youth tackle football has seen a decline
in participation interesting enough it's a decline that's been seen at a regional
level the fears about CTE and the fears about the long-term damage to a child's
health is a concern for any parent and we're seeing parents ask more questions
we're seeing parents raise more concern until we have something like a living
diagnosis where then we'll be able to say okay this person is predisposed to
genetically or you know we can monitor a teenager as they play