Signs of Irreversible Brain Disease Found in High School Football Player－weiwenchang的部落格

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A new report about the severity of repeated head trauma will surely shock the football community from youth to NFL players and cause them to rethink the dangers of concussions on the field.

According to clinical researchers at Boston University School of Medicine’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, the brain of a recently deceased 18-year-old high school football player showed the earliest signs of an incurable brain disease caused by the kind of repetitive head trauma he experienced on the football field.

Surprising researchers was the age of the player and the level of brain damage. “The findings are very shocking because we never thought anybody that young could already be started down the path to this disease,” said Dr. Robert Cantu, a clinical professor of neurosurgery at BU Medical Center and a co-director of the brain study institute. “It should send a very powerful message to people at every level of football that they need to care about this issue and treat concussions with respect.”

In the same study, postmortem exams of the brains of seven former NFL players who died between the ages of 36 and 50 showed that six of the men suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disease caused by multiple head injuries. It afflicts individuals similarly to early-onset Alzheimer’s.

The 18-year-old high school student, whose identity was withheld at his family’s request, had suffered numerous concussions playing football and other contact sports.

Dr. Ann McKee, a neurologist and director of BU’s brain bank and co-director of the study center, said she has conducted postmortem exams of thousands of brains. “I have never seen this disease in the general population, only in these athletes. It’s a crisis, and anyone who doesn’t recognize the severity of the problem is in tremendous denial.”

CTE is known to generally show symptoms only many years after a football player leaves the sport. Had the teen lived, neurologists said, he eventually would have developed early-onset dementia that would have advanced until his death.

Athletic administrators, coaches, athletes and parents need to be aware of the long-term dangers of repeated concussions in football and other contact sports and take action to encourage safer helmet design, stronger rule enforcement and immediate medical treatment following head trauma.