Impact of cte research

” In the article, Martland noted that for several years boxing fans and promoters had noticed that fighters were developing goofy behaviors after they have engaged in boxing tournaments for several years. Martland argues that the most affected group of fighters were those that were considered as “poor boxers” These boxers would take a considerable amount of head punishment, with the intention of landing a knockout blow and thus the phrase punch drunk. The words were also common in second rate fighters who were used for training purposes, and they would get knocked down several times in a day. In his report, the author conducted the research on five boxers, in which he noticed early symptoms as unsteady gait, as well as, slight mental confusion.

On further investigation, he saw that some fighters did not progress beyond the symptoms, while others went ahead to develop slow movements, hand tremors and even hesitancy in speech. From this finding, we can be able to understand that repeated trauma on the head can damage the blood-brain barrier, therefore causing neurotoxins to be released and thus promoting neurofibrillary tangles to be formed around the blood vessels. In similar research, another study found that a deep scan into CTE affected athletes revealed that in many areas of the brain the microvasculature appeared to be less dense and torturous than healthy brains. In line with the above research, it was established that the distribution of pathological microvasculature was very high when correlated with the delivery of neurofibrillary tangles.

In this research, the author proposed the explanation that repeated trauma caused damage to the microvasculature, which results in the growth of neurofibrillary tangles. Additionally, neurofibrillary tangles in CTE patients were found to have relatively higher iron and aluminum content than those in Alzheimer’s disease, which can be explained by the damage due to the blood-brain barrier (Brian et al. However, the prevalence and risk factors for someone developing CTE outside American football and boxing requires further investigation. With the rise of popularity in boxing sport and football sport, many aspiring players have always wanted to be in the field playing. However, these players are not informed of the dangers that one can face such as traumatic head injury but are instead urged to be cautious when playing in the field and avoid head to head collisions.

However, in recent years, many retired players who were actively involved in the field reported cases of head injuries. On this front, there is increasing public awareness resulting to more than 250 current and retired American footballers’ players pledging their brains to the center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), which is located at Boston University School of Medicine (CSTE 2010). However, the institution is not only looking researching on the disease, but it is also trying to find a cure which we shall also discuss in this research paper. To date, there are more than 70 retrospective clinical examinations that have been conducted by the CSTE institution with the help of family members on deceased athletes and even military personnel who had offered their brains to the institution for the purpose of the study on CTE.

The institution would then take the information obtained from the semi-structured interview and combine it with a review of the patient’s medical history. This two useful information is then analyzed by a neuropsychologist (RAS) in order to gain a critical, understanding of the clinical presentation, as well as, the progression of the deceased brain donors. It was also essential to find volunteers and donors ranging from teens to the old age of 80s. When the disease continues to grow, mood changes as a result of depression, apathy, irritability, and suicidality start to present itself. The behavioral changes include poor impulse control, which is most often referred to as having a short fuse or being out of control. Aggression and increased violence are evident in CTE patients are is among the first signs of the disease.

Additionally, disinhibition and problems with substance and other forms of abuse might start to occur in patients. In the later course of the disease, these moods, cognitive and behavioral impairments begin to worsen with cases of dementia being recorded for patients with the advanced age of 65 years and later. This behavior can be evidenced by impaired judgment, poor insight, and disinhibition. From most of the studies that I have delved in mood and behavioral changes are the primary features of CTE (Omalu et al. As with most cases that involve neurodegenerative diseases, the most common observations are mood and behavioral changes, the same argument applies for CTE, a situation which usually gives the family members and caregivers a lot of concern.

These clinical manifestations are in line with the neuropathological variations in the medial temporal lobe, as well as, orbitofrontal areas. The mixture of altered emotional responses, which also include rage, from amygdala involvement and disinhibition and reduced impact control from frontal involvement appears to be the one contributing to the more significant clinical manifestations of the CTE disease. A year later, they performed another study and published a second article. In this second article, they found a similar pathology, based on the research on the former NFL player Terry Long (McKee et al. Impact of American football on high school students In a most recent survey by Harris Poll on the most loved sports in the United States, the results indicated that professional football has remained to be America’s favorite sport for the last three decades.

However, owing t an increased awareness of mild and severe traumatic brain injuries (TBI) that are sustained during tackle football, more people have recently gained more interest in understanding the medical consequences of football, and more specifically relating to neurologic injuries. However, this very same reason has seen the participation in high school football has steadily been falling in a couple of years, owing to the mounting concerns on the potential for traumatic brain injuries, in a bid to give their kids a lasting healthy life. Fuedtner stated that the massive shift that is being experienced in the interest of football by high schoolers could be caused by the extensive media coverage on the issue. Researchers estimate that if the eight percent increase in the football participation that occurred from 2001 through 2008 had continued till the end of the research study period, there would have been approximately 184,000 additional high school students playing the sport by the year 2017.

With the absence of those players, it is estimated that it may have avoided roughly between 6,700 and 14,000 possible concussions over the last season within the study. These concussion figures were calculated based on a season comprising of 10 games and 60 practitioners (Haelle et al. Over recent years, news reports have highlighted a couple of health issues that are related to the phenomenon of chronic traumatic brain disease (CTE). The issue is among the first to look at how the brains of high school students are impacted by sports, especially because this is the stage in which the children experience body developments. This study published online in July 2018, as a way of bringing to light some of the threats that might affect the brain.

According to the senior study author, he sensitizes that high school stage is a period when the brain is still developing and has not yet matured. For this reason, there are many biological processes taking place, and therefore it is not known how these changes will affect the brain’s maturity and development. According to the senior author Chunlei Liu, who is a professor of computer sciences, electrical engineering, and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute member, there is enough research today to prove that repetitive head impacts can cause adverse effects in the brain, even if the outcome was for a short time. Recent studies of MRI have indicated that playing one season or two of high school football can result in a delicate white matter, which is found nestled in the inside of the brain.

For this reason, Liu and his team decided to study and understand whether repetitive blows to the head could affect the part of the brain containing the gray matter. According to Liu, the grey matter in the cortex area is found on the outside part of the brain. Being in such a position, they are therefore prone to more direct impact, and might, therefore, be affected. Using a new type of MRI known as Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging, the researchers will be able to examine complex neural tangles that constitute the gray matter. For this reason, the study highlights that the brain of the high school student’s microstructure is still in their development stages and a high rate at that. Therefore, it is not yet confirmed whether their brains may counteract the changes in the brain microstructure, which were caused by repetitive head impacts.

The conclusion of this study is to urge urgent action to be taken, especially frequent cognitive and mostly brain monitoring for the youth and high schoolers who engage in football and other impact sports. The monitoring is essential because, the high school students are still undergoing brain development, and exposing them to such dangers may affect their brains in the future. The authors also propose that it would be appropriate for debate to be conducted on the suitable age that the brain would endure these types of sports, mainly since the youth football has grown in popularity and other games that cause repetitive impact to the mind. CTE in college student players can only be achieved after a proper diagnosis of the brain scan is conducted.

In a study conducted by Stemper on concussion in college football. The author states that whether a college football player gets a shock from one hit on the head may depend on the number of head impacts that the player had sustained days, weeks or even months leading to the collapse, unlike a single large head impact. Many studies have already shown that the structure and function of American football players brains experience change throughout the course of their careers. According to the survey by Stemper of the Marquette University and Medical College of Wisconsin in the US, this happens with or without the players even being diagnosed with a concussion after the head impacts. In a statement, the researchers argued that the findings of the research support the modern method of trying to limit head impact exposure for football players in college during their practice sessions.

These findings support the contemporary trend of limiting head impact exposure for college football athletes during practice sessions. " In another research study by Mathilde Frot (2017), on the impact of American football on football players, the author acknowledges that football is a sport that is very popular and heavily played in colleges. However, the author raises concerns that if a college student decides to play full-contact football at a college, they might want to think again. This caution needs to be taken seriously because recently scientists have established a link between playing football and degenerative brain disease, where 90 percent of American footballers playing the sport at college level being diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. (2012), the players should be informed of the dangers and risks associated with the game, and the consequences of those risks in the future.

After being notified, the player will be required to willingly make his decision whether they shall partake or leave it altogether. Kenny Young also explains how he plays football as a linesman. He explains that his position in the field involves hitting and tackling another player every single play. However, KE admits that a player can control how Young does the tackling. However, she insists that the elements are more than enough to make a player think twice on whether about whether playing football is good for their health. However, the lure of lucrative professional contacts is what keeps most college football athletes on the field, risking their health for a short glory (). Therefore, if young college athletes are not going to put off playing the game, it is therefore upon the NFL, the coaches, and the community, in general, to come up with an alternative solution, to protect their brain from damage.

Despite claims that our players are safe in the game when they wear their helmets and sports gears, that is not the case. There is also no conclusive evidence that a protective helmet does anything to stop CTE. Now, this injury has been correlating with performance in tasks associated with reasoning, downside resolution and designing and highlights the worrying impact of repetitive head trauma. To investigate the link between head trauma and psychological feature injury, Adam Hampshire of Imperial faculty of London, and his colleagues scanned the brains of thirteen retired skilled football game players and sixty those that had ne'er contend the game, whereas they performed a series of psychological feature tests in associate degree magnetic resonance imaging machine. It wasn’t a simple task: David Hubbard, UN agency ran the tests at the Applied magnetic resonance imaging Institute in point of entry, California, says they at first had fifteen ex-sportsmen.

However, two were overlarge to suit within the machine. The soccer players solely showed modest deficits on the psychological feature tasks, including tests of coming up with, spatial awareness, memory, and enumeration, but their brains had to figure loads tougher to realize equivalent results because of the non-footballers. Ann McKee, the Bean Town University specialist, concerned within the documentary, says the work from Hubbard’s team shows that significant headway is being made into understanding however this type of brain injury happens, and probably fixing it. The author has performed several autopsies on the brains of forty-six ex-NFL players. She found clear signs of harm in forty-five of them – the scars of a condition known as a chronic traumatic brain disease (CTE), within which the brain degenerates around abnormal accumulations of a scoundrel supermolecule.

“[Hampshire’s team] has found spectacular abnormalities that mirror the area units of the brain that is broken in early CTE,” McKee says. There area unit potential solutions to the problem: as an example, Bean Town physical science announced a new wearable, breathable electronic skullcap known as the CheckLight with attire company Reebok. Replacement games – that lasted three weeks were deeply less-traveled with fans. The replacement players fell into the history books of the sport. It seems these players may very well play a crucial role in soccer nowadays – by serving the U. S. A. Whereas examination NFL players to the last community may look smart on the surface, the two teams are nothing alike. To form an associate degree NFL list, players have to be compelled to be in incredible form.

NFL players additionally build more cash than most and have access to the most accessible health care whereas they're enjoying, which may improve health, too. This is wherever the replacement players are available in. In contrast to members of the final population, replacement players usually had previous expertise enjoying soccer and perhaps even similar coaching, however, their skilled knowledge was generally restricted to merely the strike games. S. A. to rule out the likelihood that NFL players have a substantively lower risk of death than replacement players – that is what studies examination NFL players to men within the general population have found. We additionally checked out causes of death. Each NFL and replacement players were possible to die from cardiovascular disease.

And currently, recent studies have provided new insight into a number of these issues, as well as the prevalence of conditions like a headache and chronic traumatic neurological disorder (CTE) when retirement (Lehman et al. A recent pilot study of fifty retired NFL players unconcealed many important conclusions regarding life when soccer. First, over ninetieth of all players enclosed within the study rumored head pain and alternative symptoms that work the factors for headache; each episodic and chronic migraine were rumored at considerably higher percentages compared with the overall male person population additionally. And therefore, the onset of the headache disorder usually occurred throughout their enjoying career or when retirement. What is more, several of those players moreover believed that they had endured a minimum of one concussion throughout their tenure within the NFL, that the researchers think may be a potential reason for its high incidence.

4 maybe none additional disreputable than Aaron Hernandez, a former NFL player UN agency committed suicide when being condemned of first-degree murder in 2015. When his death two years later, it had been discovered that Hernandez had one among the leading severe cases of CTE, rumored as “Stage 3” by medical researchers—which had not been antecedently determined in a very brain younger than forty-six years elderly. Though several queries stay regarding, however, CTE could or might not have influenced his behavior, and the story lit national discussion regarding the role of violence in sports. Dr. Bennet Omalu Less than five weeks into the 2002 pro-football season, the soon-to-be biggest problem for the entire National Football League was cooking in a Pittsburgh autopsy room, studying the body of one of the most prominent and fearsome individuals to have ever played in the offensive position of a lineman.

This publication has become what other researchers and scientists would describe as a joke. For example, researchers such as Mark Fainaru-Wadu and Steve Fainaru note in the publication “League of Denial” that the NFL used the journal to publish a series of original papers that most of the peer reviewers would reject. The two authors also go ahead to describe the journal as a “Journal of No NFL concussion. ” Omalu’s published paper of 2005, became particularly troubling to the National Football League since it concluded that the brain of Webster after several professional examinations has “neuropathological changes” which are consistent with signs of long-term repetitive brain concussion injury. According to Omalu, they published the paper on “Neurosurgery” since he and his colleague believed that the NFL would take it with much interest and act after reading the research.

Despite the National Football League’s attempt to fight off and discourage concussion science by harassing Omalu and through other means of discrimination, more scientists such as Dr. Ann McKee became interested in the topic, and more momentum was building against the league forcing it to take action. In the year 2009, Goodell disbanded MTBI and replaced it with a new research body. In addition, the year 2012 marked the NFL’s efforts to support the research on concussion. During this year, The National Football League donated a handsome amount of $30 million to the National Institutes of Health specifically to be used for brain research. It is clear that what CTE does to the brain required a lot of further research to establish how it occurs and what can be done to minimize it.

However, the research conducted to date associate CTE with confusion, impaired judgment, memory loss, aggression, impulse control problems as well as, progressive dementia. In the Jama study, of the 84 participants who had severe CTE, 89 percent had behavioral and mood symptoms. 95 percent of the participants had cognitive symptoms, and lastly, 85 percent had signs of dementia. Even players that had mild CTE were observed to have behavioral and mood symptoms, whereas 33 percent of them had signs of dementia. The rule not only prohibits contact to the head or neck, but it also includes other parts of the body such as hips, torso and the lower body is protected as well. According to an official NFL fact sheet, If a player performs a hit with his helmet on another player, they could be ejected from the game.

This ejection can only happen if the player lowers his helmet in order to establish a straight body posture before initiating contact. Also, if a player makes contact with another player and the contact was clearly avoidable, then the player could be asked to leave the field. A player is also not required to make contact when there is an unobstructed path to the opponent. In most cases, every protective rule has been greeted with controversy. Most of the football purists always claim that these changes come to “sissyfy” the football or even go ahead to ridicule the league’s decision by saying they might as well put a dress on the quarterback and letting him play in a rocking chair.

However, it is essential to know that these critics are not around later after the player is diagnosed with dementia and CTE. It is also crucial to note that every field does not lack critics who tend to oppose and defy any changes in an organization. However, since the introduction of the protective rules in the game, the changes have already been integrated into football, and this, in turn, has made the game even more popular (Steinberg, 2018). The rule does not just stop there. Now players have to be conscious of where they make contact with the opponent. This is because the new law states that contact should not be on the opponent’s head or the neck area. This is to ensure that head to head collisions are a thing of the past.

In addition to the head and neck area, a player is also not required to make head contact with an opponent’s torso, hips, and lower body. In his tweet he also compares American football to rugby, saying that if you watch a rugby game, the players tackle with their head in the lead. According to other sources, some of the NFL players are confused as to how they will be tackling other players and at the same time play within the rules. Some of the players that have fallen victim include the Eagles safety Rodney McLeod when he was penalized due to the helmet rule that was introduced the previous weekend. The penalty occurred when he tackled Patriots running back James White, where he lowered his head in the process.

However, McLeod was the one that was flagged for the play and not James White. e. , the science department and the National Football League. While the league committee started off denying any relationship between football and the concussion discovered by Omalu, the scientist would not relent, and even went ahead to publish another article based on findings of another legendary former football player. The research by Omalu and his colleagues made other scientists interested in neuropathology to start exploring the possibility of CTE in the brain by a concussion. It was during this time that the National Football league became curious and began showing concerns for it's player's wellbeing. Giza, Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Jonathan Jackson, Gerald T. McGinty, Steven J. Svoboda, Thomas W.

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