Athletes' Brains Reveal Concussion Damage

jamie found a story on research about what concussions do to athletes, with the insights coming mostly from the study of the donated brains of dead athletes. The NFL has the biggest profile in the piece, but other sports make an appearance too. Turns out that repeated concussions can result in depression, insomnia, and the beginnings of something that looks a lot like Alzheimer's. "The idea that you can whack your head hundreds of times in your life and knock yourself out and get up and be fine is gone," said [retired wrestler] Nowinski. "We know we can't do that anymore. This causes long-term damage."

Comments

Referencing to other article

[Herr_Skymarshall]

They just need to smoke more pot!

Re:Referencing to other article

[Feanturi]

I'm not sure how that's "backwards". Depending on the activity, pot is in fact performance enhancing. I just can't remember how offhand.

Re:Referencing to other article

[wizbit]

Oblig Eddie Izzard:

"But the Dutch speak four languages and smoke marijuana!"

"Yes, but they're cheating! Everyone knows marijuana is a drug enhancement, that can help you on track in field, to come... last, in a team of... eight million other runners who are all dead."

Really?

[bFusion]

"The idea that you can whack your head hundreds of times in your life and knock yourself out and get up and be fine is gone," said [retired wrestler] Nowinski.

This was a legitimate idea that people actually believed?

Re:Really?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The "Just suck it up and be a man" theory of sports medicine is surprisingly persistent. As are its close relatives the "Stay strong and positive" theory of oncology and the "Pull yourself together" theory of psychotherapy.

Re:Really?

[jockeys]

actually, I'm pretty sure the only people who believed it were people who had been whacked on the head hundreds of times.

Re:Really?

[ChienAndalu]

So very true. Other cancers of todays medicine are the "let it all out"-philosophy in gastroenterology and the "don't be so hard on yourself" school of urology.

Re:Really?

[MyLongNickName]

if I had to choose between the two extremes, I would choose this over the "lets remove all risk from a child's environment" philosophy. Fortunately, this is a false dichotomy.

Re:Really?

[chill]

No, not really. I mean a quick look at ex-boxers, like Muhammad Ali, would tell you otherwise. The phrase "punch drunk" has been in the English language for some time now.

Re:Really?

[elrous0]

Obviously you're not my little brother.

Re:Really?

[GNT]

Cancer survival not linked to a positive attitude, study finds
Print version: page 14

Some cancer patients seek out support groups and psychotherapy with the notion that improving their emotional states will extend their lives, says University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine psychologist James C. Coyne, PhD.

However, in a study in the journal Cancer, (Vol. 110, No. 11) Coyne and colleagues reported that emotional well-being in no way predicted survival among patients with head and neck cancer.

"If people want to go to a support group there are lots of advantages to it, such as a sense of belonging, but survival isn't one of them," says Coyne.

In the large-scale study conducted over nine years, Coyne and colleagues used baseline quality-of-life questionnaires to assess the well-being of 1,093 cancer patients. All participants were involved in clinical trials, which ensured uniformity of treatment and ruled out substantial health disparities in the sample. During the study, 646 patients died, and the research team found no relationship between their emotional well-being and cancer progression and death.

Though his findings strongly contradict the notion that a positive attitude is related to survival, the idea of "fighting" cancer is deeply rooted in our culture, says Coyne.

"It's the American way, that you can do it, you can fight it," he adds.

Based on the study results, Coyne believes it's important to not blame cancer patients who don't adopt an aggressively positive spirit.

"We want to recognize thatthere are lots of individual differences in coping with cancer," he says. "People have to do what's comfortable with them, but they have to do it without the burden of thinking they've got to have the right attitudeto survive."

Re:Really?

[causality]

if I had to choose between the two extremes, I would choose this over the "lets remove all risk from a child's environment" philosophy. Fortunately, this is a false dichotomy.

If our public schools were worthy institutions, they would teach critical thinking so that people could learn the concept of a "false dichotomy" or "excluded middle" once and for all. I'd much prefer that to having to debunk myriad instances of the idea each time they are found.

If you'll permit a fanciful image, it's like the hydra with a thousand heads. Debunking the myriad instances is like trying to cut off each head, one at a time. Learning the concept involved and moving on is like going straight for the heart of the beast and taking it down in one stroke. I know which one suits me.

Re:Really?

[g0at]

Actually, my understanding is that he suffers from Parkinson's syndrome, which is not the same as the disease proper.

-b

Re:Really?

[FiloEleven]

Okay, okay! I admit I was wrong. Will you call off your friends from posting even more damning replies!?

Re:Really?

[Have Brain Will Rent]

I've read something similar to what you are quoting and while I don't particularly disbelieve it I do wonder how the "positive thinking doesn't help" idea fits in with the observed lowered life expectancy for people with depression. In fact just getting health insurance after being diagnosed with depression can be very difficult.

Re:Really?

[The_mad_linguist]

Actually, my understanding is that he suffers from Parkinson's syndrome, which is not the same as the disease proper.

-b

Head trauma *is* correlated with the onset of Parkinson's.

Past episodes of head trauma are reported more frequently by individuals with Parkinson's disease than by others in the population. A recent methodologically strong retrospective study found that those who have experienced a head injury are four times more likely to develop Parkinsonâ(TM)s disease than those who have never suffered a head injury. The risk of developing Parkinsonâ(TM)s increases eightfold for patients who have had head trauma requiring hospitalization, and it increases 11-fold for patients who had experienced severe head injury.

If this is true...

[scubamage]

If this is true, then why do schools insist on giving money to sports programs while starving arts and sciences budgets? Not only do they not do their job, they're effectively making kids dumber by causing brain damage.

Re:If this is true...

[Vectronic]

It's a conspiracy.

Re:If this is true...

[Wonko the Sane]

Not only do they not do their job, they're effectively making kids dumber by causing brain damage.

Unless making kids dummer is their job.

Re:If this is true...

[je ne sais quoi]

The answer is marketing. A highly visible sports program does seem to increase the visibility of the school and in response, the school gets a bigger pool of student applications and can choose better students out of that pool. But I agree that the idea that we have these "athlete scholars" is usually a farce, their is a double-standard for athletes and universities do whatever they can to ignore huge problems with athletes cheating, etc. The universities really need to stop spending so much money on their athletic programs and worry about their core missions, which are education and research, which does NOT include entertainment.

As for TFA, for us sedentary desk-jockeys, we think of "exercise" as healthy, but anyone who has played a sport in some sort of serious way has probably noticed that athletics at this level is not healthy, it's damaging to the body, it doesn't surprise me that the brain is no exception. I played competitive ultimate frisbee on a regular basis for several years and I was beginning to get knee trouble. Looking at the health problems some of the older players had was enough to make me quit. I'd much rather still be able to walk when I'm 50 thank you.

Re:If this is true...

[causality]

Not only do they not do their job, they're effectively making kids dumber by causing brain damage.

Unless making kids dummer is their job.

This is the first time I've seen anyone other than me reference this excellent man and the wisdom he is willing to share. You referenced the book The Underground History of American Education. That's an amazing thing to read, for it explains not just the problem but how it came to be this way and the sort of politics that made it override the wishes of parents.

If you ever need (depending on your audience) a shorter introduction to John Taylor Gatto and his message, you may also like his essay, The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher.

I know that you referenced truth because doing so was its own reward. It does not make you want to horde it like gold and silver, but rather to share it with whomever will listen. Knowing this, I say BLESS YOU for bringing such excellence into this discussion. To lots of us, even those of us already familiar with these things, it is a welcome sight.

Re:If this is true...

[frosty_tsm]

but anyone who has played a sport in some sort of serious way has probably noticed that athletics at this level is not healthy, it's damaging to the body

This has actually been a big thing for me. I do martial arts and have experienced a wide range of styles and schools. When I go to a school and see a master in his 30s with knee problems, I move on.

I've developed a theory that there is a balance that one decide when picking a marital art. One one side, there are brutal styles with lots of sparing that will make you incredibly strong / effective. But the strain on the body will result in you only being strong for a limited number of years. Since I'm not a soldier and am not fighting for my life, there's no benefit in me studying one of these styles for an extended period of time. These would include Krav Maga, Jujitsu, and many Tae Kwon Do styles (depends on the round-house kicking technique).

There are gentler styles that still are effective martial arts but without stressing one's body to the point of failure after a few years. This includes Aikido (even though you fall, you fall gently), Iaido (just don't cut yourself), and possibly Kendo.

I can't say my observations are perfect, but I've seen a lot more old yet effective practitioners of these styles than of the first styles.

Re:If this is true...

[mdarksbane]

Yes, because there's a much higher earning potential for artists than football players... they're both disciplines where a few people make it big, and the rest scrounge or go into something else while talking about their lost dreams.

In high school, I resented the attention that the jocks and the athletic department got at our school. But then I got to college and went into engineering... and saw dozens of young men who couldn't run a mile, who were obese and unattractive and unable to be self-sufficient when it came to anything physical. Moreover, I saw the inability to work as a team, to work within a command structure or to lead others, to communicate, to deal with stress and confrontation.

Deifying athletics is ridiculous - but so is ridiculing it. Music, art, athletics, hell, even math and science for the vast majority of high schoolers, are not things we teach our children because we want them to spend the rest of their lives painting or playing guitar. They are ways to grow the whole human body and mind into a stronger, faster, smarter, more social, more responsible, and just pure *better* adult.

We should support better safety in sports - but as others have pointed out, concussions are something that are only recently well understood. There was a general idea of a correlation between too many head injuries and brain damage, but no one knew how often, or how bad, or anything it would take to do serious damage. Sports medicine isn't the only area where there have been bad knowledge or just plain lack of knowledge, especially at the high school level.

We should fund art, and music, and science, and everything else in schools better, and many schools do have more priority than they probably should on athletics. But then, how often do you see the whole community energized and supportive in physical presence and monetary donations to watch a science class. Maybe we should be hitting that angle before we complain about schools spending on athletics.

Re:If this is true...

[mdarksbane]

Define personal fitness. I'd say it includes running and jumping around. PE teaches team sports because they're a lot more interesting (to most people), and keep a lot more people involved, than running on a treadmill. I guess it's a bit of a philosophy thing - if you're uncoordinated, do you give up or push harder. Some people were never taught (or never had - we could argue that all day) that kind of physical competitiveness.

Team sports may seem like they teach worthless things... but throwing, catching, dodging, all build agility and coordination better than most pure drills you could do, especially when you add that you're trying to do it over the head of someone else.

Unattractiveness is 90-95% body weight and muscle mass. A guy can have one of the ugliest mugs you've ever seen but he will still beat out every over or underweight nerd you know if he has a six pack. Are football players generally naturally attractive? Not their faces, but ask most women and they'd love it if their husband had their bodies. How much depression and disorders are directly linked to poor fitness? How many nerds do you know with major psychological issues due to their inability (or perceived inability ) to attract women (or men, although that is generally less of an issue in our discipline).

And finally... no one is forced to hit their head with a ball. You're encouraged to play, but if you don't go for that header, they aren't going to fail you for the class.

I get tired of this false dichotomy in our society between physical and mental pursuits. There is no reason to ignore any aspect of your personal development. Being smart does not give you and excuse to be weak, nor being athletic an excuse to ignore your math studies. You may not start on the football team or win the nobel price, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't play the game.

It's not that surprising

[Anonymous Cowbell]

I remember an ESPN interview of a retired NFL linebacker. He'd had multiple concussions in his playing days. He was quite mentally damaged, at the ripe old age of 45.

One day he went out for a drive, and when he got to his block, he couldn't recognize his own house. So he decided to just keep driving around the block, over and over. More than an hour elapsed before one of his family members spotted the car out the front window and went outside and flagged him down.

It wasn't the first time seemingly simple things/memories just completely escaped him

Re:It's not that surprising

[Sponge Bath]

...enough of a meathead that he would've done that anyways

Yeah but Meatwad make the money see, Meatwad get the honeys G.
With all of that, what would you want with a functioning brain?

Re:It's not that surprising

[ChienAndalu]

Just out of curiosity, I just googeled for Muhammad Ali to find about his Parkinson condition.

It looks like his career choice was at least partly responsible for his brain damage: Article.

This isn't mentioned in the Wikipedia, by the way.

Makes you wonder if it is smart to glorify professional boxing.

Re:It's not that surprising

[Darth_brooks]

It's not surprising, but it's also a bit of a slight to the way concussions are being handled today. These artciles give the impression that concussions are treated today the same way they were 30 years ago.

Ten years ago was the point where things really started to "click" when it came to concussions. Jim Everett's case in particular. He was an NFL quarterback who spent several years as a veritable punching bag for some god-awful teams, including the St. Louis Rams. Everett had actually taken to keeping his phone number in his wallet, since he frequently got lost on the way home (a 15 minute drive) from the stadium, and couldn't remember his address or phone number. At that point, a lot of NFL teams began taking notice. The tissue samples we're seeing are from guys who, for the most part, played in the 70's and 80's, back when "shut up and play you pussy, you just 'got your bell rung'" was a way of life. Now, concussions are handled with considerably more care. Is it enough? I don't know that anyone is sure yet. But at least they're being treated like the legitimate, serious injury they are.

But what's really waking up pro sports teams? Money. With teams investing over 100 million dollars over ten years in some players, the risk is losing not only what you've invested in development, but what you stand to earn in terms of marketing and merchandise revenues. What do you think a Peyton Manning-level players is worth to his franchise over his career? a quarter of a billion dollars? Half a billion? Do you think it's any different in the NHL? Or EPL?

It's interesting that Chris Nowinski is mentioned in the article. As a former pro-wrestler, hearing him talk about concussions is like hearing about gang violence from someone who lives in Compton. The WWE has an absolutely abysmal record of handling athlete injuries, especially concussions.

Re:It's not that surprising

[butalearner]

The tissue samples we're seeing are from guys who, for the most part, played in the 70's and 80's, back when "shut up and play you pussy, you just 'got your bell rung'" was a way of life. Now, concussions are handled with considerably more care. Is it enough? I don't know that anyone is sure yet. But at least they're being treated like the legitimate, serious injury they are.

My father was a linebacker for 8 years in the '80s, and he says something very similar. He had several concussions himself, and only when he suffered the one or two major ones did he come out of the game. He's coached for a high school and a smaller college team recently and says that even at that level everyone is so much more aware of injuries, and other dangers like dehydration and heat exhaustion, than they were when he played professionally. And before that it was worse...when he was in high school they used to take salt pills instead of water breaks.

Anyway, he's 50 now, his knees and back are shot so he walks like a 75 year old. Maybe it's because he just turned 50, but the NFLPA has recently gotten serious about former player health, so they've begun periodically checking his heart and other health problems. But thankfully the only mental problem I've noticed is that he votes Republican.

Athletes?

[Tackhead]

"The idea that you can whack your head hundreds of times in your life and knock yourself out and get up and be fine is gone," said [retired wrestler] Nowinski. "We know we can't do that anymore. This causes long-term damage."

And they needed to study athletes for this? They could have asked anyone who's ever done more than a week of front-line tech support.

Briefly, the degree of mental impairment is roughly proportional to the depth of the worn-out concavity in the desk. The rates at which both measurements increase over time show a logarithmic flattening-out as one progresses from front-line support to management.

Re:whodathunkit?

[Wonko the Sane]

whodathunkit?

+1 unintentional onomatopoeia

Nowinski?

[loshwomp]

Never bet on the guy named "Nowinski". He's never won anything.

Common F. Sense is absent again...

[geekmux]

"The idea that you can whack your head hundreds of times in your life and knock yourself out and get up and be fine is gone....We know we can't do that anymore."

Just curious in what medical journal was this ever listed outside of the No-Shit-Sherlock section?

Unreal what a Common Sense deficiency can do to a person.

Re:Thankfully I'm a nerd.

[causality]

For once I am thanking the fact that I have no atheletic skill and turned to a life of technology and computers.

Personally I balance that by enjoying the outdoors. It does not take very much effort to be able to easily handle a five-mile hike in relatively rough (i.e. difficult, but no special equipment needed) terrain and it's quite enjoyable. There is something magic about the forest that puts your mind at ease and gives you a sense of peace, especially when you find a harmony there that is often missing in the "rat race" life. Depending on where you like to go, it also can involve a lot of different movements like jumping and climbing which is why I consider it superior to simply walking around the block.

Now, I am not a doctor so this is just my personal opinion, but I also think this is a healthy sort of exercise that, assuming you are not careless or clumsy, does not carry anything like the risks of injury that most sports like American football include. That's not to say that no one ever gets hurt in the wilderness, because that certainly does happen to some people and it's not for everybody, but I've yet to hear such a story that was not the direct result of negligence on the part of the person involved. I also think that a lean, agile body is healthier than a "beefcake" body like those that American football players are often encouraged to have, for the latter is often built on what I would call a burnout lifestyle.

Blame the gloves?

[old_dragoon]

I have read several places that for a fighter to be "punch drunk" was not known during the bareknuckle days. It makes sense that the heavy gloves allow a man to hit his opponent harder in the head than he could otherwise. One proponent of this opinion was Louis L'Amour. Better known for being a great western writer, he also had a long and successful career as a heavy-weight fighter.