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Athletes' Brains Reveal Concussion Damage

Posted by kdawson on from the chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy dept.

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."

9 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. Referencing to other article by Herr_Skymarshall · · Score: 5, Funny

    They just need to smoke more pot!

    1. Re:Referencing to other article by wizbit · · Score: 5, Funny

      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."

  2. Really? by bFusion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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?

    1. Re:Really? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Really? by ChienAndalu · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

    3. Re:Really? by MyLongNickName · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    4. Re:Really? by GNT · · Score: 5, Informative

      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."

  3. It's not that surprising by Anonymous+Cowbell · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  4. Athletes? by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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.