For those of you that are NFL fans like us, happy first football Sunday of the ’16-’17 NFL season!
You may have noticed that the National Football League concussion protocol has become increasingly stringent over the past few years. This has occurred for valid reason! Here is a video courtesy of UCLA’s Dr. Christopher Giza that simulates why helmets are limited in their protection against concussions. Since the 1920s, it has been known that repetitive brain trauma associated with the sport of boxing may contribute to progressive neurological deterioration. This condition was originally termed “dementia pugilistica” and has more recently been named Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). This type of injury manifests after years of constant high impact collisions (including symptomatic concussions and asymptomatic subconcussive hits) that cause the brain to literally shake inside the skull. As seen in this video, the effects are global with the entire organ being jarred around in the cranium. In recent years, CTE has infamously been linked to the NFL and thousands of its former players (the NFL recently reached a class action lawsuit settlement with former players – providing up to $5 million per retired player for serious medical conditions associated with repeated head trauma). Clinically, CTE is associated with memory disturbances, behavior and personality changes, Parkinsonism as well as speech and gait abnormalities. Since this condition results in degeneration of brain tissue, the NFL’s recent changes (especially the past 5 years) in officiating hits to the helmet are directly related to preserving the long-term brain health of their athletes!
Written by Student Doctor: Navpreet Singh Badesha © 09/12/2016 All Rights Reserved.
Inspired by: Mohamed Ghilan, Johnny Cherukara, Jay Virdi, Kevin Warring and Shahin Khoygani.
Featured image courtesy of: MedScape
This research on ‘Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in Athletes: Progressive Tauopathy following Repetitive Head Injury’ was published in the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine.
