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NIH Neuroscientists: Junior Seau Had Brain Disease Caused By Hits To the Head
McGruber writes "ABC News/ESPN broke the story that a team of scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) analyzed the brain tissue of renowned NFL linebacker Junior Seau and have concluded that the football player suffered a debilitating brain disease likely caused by two decades worth of hits to the head. From the article: 'In May 2012, Seau, 43 — football's monster in the middle, a perennial all-star and defensive icon in the 1990s whose passionate hits made him a dominant figure in the NFL — shot himself in the chest at his home in Oceanside, Calif., leaving behind four children and many unanswered questions.'
As Slashdot earlier reported, more than 30 NFL players have in recent years been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition once known as 'punch drunk' because it affected boxers who had taken multiple blows to the head."
There exist sensors that can be placed into the helment and detect hits that are potentially damaging. The cost is actually nominal. The NFL should make these mandatory.
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2011/January/Helmet-Device-Could-Help-in-Concussion-Detection/
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
It's a Tradition!
football
I think you meant to type "handegg".
a condition once known as 'punch drunk' because it affected boxers who had taken multiple blows to the head
As opposed to the boxers that never get hit in the head in their entire career? The entire sport is giving each other concussions and you hear more complaints about the NFL than boxing these days. I think the loudest whiners are just soccer fans and/or people who don't like football.
In fine Slashdot tradition, let's hear from 52 people telling us that correlation does not imply causation and that only people with brain trauma or predisposed to it play football.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
heading in soccer also causes brain damage.
And in all these cases an informed population chooses to engage in harmful activity. In the case of football, families clamor to put their small children in harms way, knowing, or at least should know as the information is out there for all to see, that treatment of injuries that are effective in mature athletes are much more difficult and expensive in immature athletes, often with a worse prognosis. Adults clamor for the pay that football gives them, then the public criticizes teams for using these athletes to do what they are paid to do.
So this is no surprise, and for the most part I suspect it will not change anything. People who need to believe will say that helmets are better, that athletes are better taken care of, that this is a one time thing. And then kids will be put out on the field, hit, and like type 2 diabetes which had been almost non existant in children, we will likely see symptoms of the increased rate of brain injury.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Interesting that he didn't shoot himself in the head. I wonder if that was a calculated move so that scientists could examine his brain to find the cause of his debilitating brain injuries?
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Well, I hope your son never plays soccer beyond the Recreational level. Part of the game is heading the ball, which can travel quite fast. It may be a very light ball compared to other sports, but remember your physics lessons: it doesn't matter what it weighs if it's moving fast enough. Pro soccer players (the linked article is about a pro sport, yeah?) often have brain damage from taking hundreds of shots to the noggin from a ball traveling 60+ mph; and that's the low end of a kick, there are players who can kick for 80+ mph, and a few who claim 90+ mph.
I think you're suffering from a condition called "over-protective parent disorder." ALL sports have risk involved. Some more than others, yes, but the two examples you give are also dangerous. ACL/MCL tears and ankle problems (along with the above example) are major parts of soccer. Swimming? Drowning doesn't seem to be very fun- and yes, it does happen.
There hasn't been an awful lot of research that I know of about CTE in soccer. But some early studies show that heading the ball in soccer is pretty similar to the frequent low level collisions that linemen experience in football. In a game a player is not going to head the ball that frequently. But in practice they often do.
What is surprising, is that this is surprising.
There exist sensors that can be placed into the helment and detect hits that are potentially damaging.
If those are triggered then the damage is already done. More to the point if you are in a sport where that sort of thing is necessary, perhaps playing that sport isn't such a good idea. I have nothing particularly against american style football as a sport (heck I've taken boxing lessons) but if we're causing that much damage then maybe we should reconsider our entertainment choices.
heading in soccer also causes brain damage.
Banging one's head against the desk when some idiot posts a convoluted edge case as a rebuttal to a general argument probably also causes brain damage, hypertension, blurred vision and damaged keyboards.
I should probably quit doing it.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The entire sport is giving each other concussions and you hear more complaints about the NFL than boxing these days
Not many people are in the sport of boxing. A few thousand nationwide maybe. Football on the other hand is wildly popular with participation counts likely in the millions. While your point is valid, we can prevent a lot more injuries by worrying about football.
Multiple hits cause chronic damage. That's why I kept my son out of hockey, and why I'll keep him out of football as well. Soccer and swimming seem relatively safe. Being Canadian, a lot of people rag on anyone who says that hockey is dangerous for hits (like that twit Don Cherry) but it's just obvious.
Any physical activity can cause any injury. Sure, they may not end up as one with 25 years of head injuries, but end up with a limp and arthritis at the ripe old age of 35 as well. I played football back in the day and other contact sports. It's fun. It's more fun if you are decent at your particular sport. I'm sure it's even more fun when you are a top flight athlete, like those in the professional ranks. I've seen cheerleaders (girls) who have chronic knee and back problems a few years after high school. And even cross country can cause serious knee and ankle injuries. Would I discourage my children from partaking in sports. Never. I'd just have them be as smart as they can be. I'd even support boxing or MMA should my child wish. If that is their desire to play said sport, I would totally support them.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Eliminating the "protective" equipment worn by the players would massively decrease the quantity of brain injuries. Players hit at speed and tackle head-up and in front of the runner (vs the rugby style) because from Pop Warner on they are "up-armored" like a Hummer in Jalalabad. Everything about how you are taught to hit in football (everything I was taught through high school anyway) becomes impractical when you take away shoulder pads and the facemask, especially at the higher speeds in college and the pros. Go to the soft helmet and no shoulder pads and the blood will fly but the concussions will drop dramatically. Since we have made good strides in treating lacerations and broken bones but can't fix brain injuries, I would vote for a trip in the way-back machine to early years of football.
Too bad the family didn't have doctors study what years of (alleged) steroid abuse did to him. Easier to point the finger at someone else, I suppose.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
That's the thing though, and I'm surprised nobody has made this point yet... and slashdot is a shitty place to discuss anything football cause there's more to a sport than injury's... maybe so much more that some of those injuries are justifiable, ok no maybe here, you'd have to be stupid to become an athlete and not acknowledge that you may get injured.
However, that's not my point, my point is people have different thicknesses of their skull and a doctor measures that thickness and determines if you're able to say do boxing. Yours is obviously below what's required for soccer, because your head rings on a header play, doesn't mean that happens to the guys next to you... and that's how you were born. Maybe a way to fix football would be to put in place such a test for positions such as lineman, but have fun telling the guys playing in college right now they'll never make it to the nfl because their skull isn't thick enough to guarantee a career free of brain damage, a riot would ensue, us Americans take football very seriously sometimes.
It's inevitable that the game of 'football' is going to have to drastically change its rules to take away the traumatic brain injuries. It will start with high school football, then college, then the NFL. What school district or college can afford lawsuits over that? Maybe it will have to become flag football or, more likely, some sort of hybrid with limited blocking and tackling. Whatever results, though, the Football 2.0 rules will end the present situation where brain injuries are a certainty.
Soccer does actually have higher concussion rates in youth sports than football.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
That gets funnier every time!
But seriously, if your eggs look anything like footballs, you're shopping in the wrong stores.
heading in soccer also causes brain damage.
Banging one's head against the desk when some idiot posts a convoluted edge case as a rebuttal to a general argument probably also causes brain damage, hypertension, blurred vision and damaged keyboards.
I should probably quit doing it.
Not enough data points.
We're going to need you to continue until we can develop a good representative sample; your next of kin will be notified.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
> a lot of people rag on anyone who says that hockey is dangerous for hits
Reminds me of that old joke: I went to the fights and a hockey game broke out.
We've had touch hockey, touch football, etc, for years. It helps keeps the focus on _gameplay_, not the gratuitous and idiotic hitting. It is barbaric that men are so stupid that they have to revert to violence for entertainment. /sarcasm Who cares if someone gets permanent damage for the rest of the life if the fans are entertained, right!
This is one of the dumber comments modded up I've seen in a while. You are adding extra layers of protection from your brain and impact.
You're also adding extra layers of protection to the people hitting you.
Here's an experiment: Go punch someone in the face. Right now. I'll wait. See? Hurts like hell, doesn't it? Hm? No, no, I mean YOU. As in, your fist hurts like hell, right? You're slamming your fist into bone there. Sure, your target's not going to be in good shape, either, but you're pretty well done bashing his face in for the day, aren't you?
Now, put on boxing gloves and punch someone in the face. Hey, look at that! Your fists don't feel nearly as bad, do they? Heck, you can just keep on punching them in the face, can't you? Why not give your target protective headgear? Man, then you can punch them even more and for longer periods of time! Don't hold back! Just keep slamming their skull and brain with your padded fist! Your fists won't feel it!
See that last part there? The part about not holding back? Anyone who's been in a fight knows damn well that movies are full of bullshit: You can't reasonably expect to floor someone with one bare-knuckle punch and be in any condition to take down his fifty friends standing right behind him in the same manner. And, since people generally tend to avoid doing things that will cause them a ton of pain, anyone who knows this will avoid trying to deal out blows to the face, regardless of how much more damage it would seem to cause. But, protect that fist, and the punches will come repeatedly. Will each punch be as damaging as a bare-knuckle, bone-on-bone blow? No. But will there be a much longer series of not-quite-as-damaging, but-still-pretty-nasty hits? Yes.
So, let's leave boxing for a sec and go to football. First smartass who comes onto an American website acting confused as to what sport I'm talking about will be dutifully ignored. As will be the second or third. In fact, all of them. You have tacklers looking for a way to halt the progress of whatever chump has the ball, as well as any of his friends who get in their respective ways. Let's say you're the star tackler! Yes, you! Get out there in your jeans and t-shirt and launch yourself head-first at that other be-t-shirted fellow's head! Go for the tackle!
Didn't feel very good, did it? Like hell you're trying THAT again. Once your head stops swimming in the next quarter, your next tackle will be at the much more soft and squishy midsection.
Now, put on all your padded just-short-of-combat-armor. Padded chest protector, padded helmet, padded pants, etc, etc. Your opponent has the same armor. NOW go launch yourself at the guy with the ball!
BOOM! Right in the helmet-protected face! Sure, he's still moving, but his head had to take a pretty nasty, though padded, blow! And what's more, you're still up, too, ready to do it again in under 35 seconds unless someone calls a timeout! And you'll keep doing this THE ENTIRE GAME! The game can go on, and what's more, it can go on with BIGGER, HARDER HITS!
Still think all that protection is there for the players being hit?
So when we were cave tree men we probably used to bash each other in the head on a daily basis but we didn't worry about it too much as we rarely lived past 30yrs. In an activity which involves alot of bashing there is no way to protect the brain except maybe to limit the frequency and allow for more than proper recovery for the noticeable incidents. So for the NFL, make it a once a month sport with 3 weeks off after every game ...
And more experimentally Pickle the head bones to make them softer?
Hello Cruel World
No, he's talking about the traditional game of headbrick.
This has nothing to do with statism. Conscientious parents simply aren't going to let their kids go out for football. Who wants to set their kids up for a lifetime of this - particularly if it increases their likelihood of an early death, of suicide, violence off the field or debilitating mental illness?
Why does everything have to be a political argument? This mostly has to do with being humane. If you wouldn't want this to happen to yourself or your loved ones, why would you pay to see it happen to somebody else?
Americans take money very seriously. NFL and College Football are very good at bringing in money, from what I can tell by ticket and concession pricing.
Karnal
What we need to do is remove the skull of football players and put more padding around the brain. There would be a new permanent skull-helmet placed over the brain-padding to protect from cuts and sharp edges. I'm sure all the football players will look rather strange with giant heads, but we would get used to it after a short while. On the plus side for the players, they will be very easy to recognize out in public, so their fame will go up even more.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Why does everything have to be a political argument? This mostly has to do with being humane. If you wouldn't want this to happen to yourself or your loved ones, why would you pay to see it happen to somebody else?
Because for generations school funding had been diverted away from the fundamentals of an enriching education in favor of sanctioned sports. And as the public school system crumble with teachers and professionals alike saying we need to focus on education, our politicians gladly raise our taxes only for the windfall to again be mismanaged into non-priority academics.
Best case is that it was blind loyalty to a stupid game of tribalism, worst case is that it's intentional to keep the cup rattling for more money.
More Twoson than Cupertino
This research may also prove valuable for returning war veterans, who were exposed to concussive explosions repeatedly; which also causes long term brain injury.
No, he just needed to make it clear that this was a reference to the non-gay one.
The non-gay football? You mean the one with less contact than the other one?
Ezekiel 23:20
You forgot the scrotum-sniffing.
because, more and more, slashdot has become a dumping ground of any news with a hint of science in it or related to it. It's about flooding content, so people spend more time daily reading stuff that doesn't really matters to them, because they don't want to miss something that does.
an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Keep the troops home, no messed up brains. Lets instead, focus on problems that don't have easy solutions like "Don't ram your head into people repeatedly" or "Don't invade 3rd world counties and expect them not to try and blow your ass up"
Frankly I wish they would dispense with the half-assed warfare of football, and bring back the gladiatorial games. Instead of mock battles over some stupid ball and goal posts, let's just move the game straight to big motherfuckers cutting each other to pieces. We can triple their pay, and they likely won't make it to 40, let alone to the point where they start suffering the ill effects of neurological damage.
I mean, if these guys are going to end up brain damaged messes in the end anyways, why not just short circuit all of that and go for the blood. That's what audiences really want, anyways. I can just see Hank Williams Jr. shouting "It's time for Monday Night Slaughterhouse!"
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Players are getting bigger and faster, but brains are still delicate.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Because the players are bigger and stronger. The average offensive lineman is 60, 70 pound bigger than even 30 years ago, much less 60. More mass, more impact.
espn.go.com/espn/page2/story/_/id/6933214/tmq-mel-kiper-jr-size-increase-football-players
There's probably also other factors -- I suspect training is also more intense, and all those training hits add up too. But the sheer size of your modern football player is a big one.
We can only hope. Football is now scientifically proven to be more dangerous than marijuana. It's time to start sending football players to jail.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This has nothing to do with statism.
Sure it does. A demonstrably harmful past time is legal, while a much less harmful past time is illegal. Why? Arbitrary and capricious authority, that's all. Statism run amok.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
From wikipedia (which have links to the relevant sources):
From its earliest days as a mob game, football was a violent sport. The 1894 Harvard-Yale game, known as the "Hampden Park Blood Bath", resulted in crippling injuries for four players; the contest was suspended until 1897. The annual Army-Navy game was suspended from 1894 to 1898 for similar reasons. One of the major problems was the popularity of mass-formations like the flying wedge, in which a large number of offensive players charged as a unit against a similarly arranged defense. The resultant collisions often led to serious injuries and sometimes even death.
Interestingly while the bloody Harvard-Yale game took place in 1894, the first use of a football helmet is attributed to George "Rose" Barclay. Who in 1896 wore straps and ear pieces to protect his ears. The late 1910's marks the first use of hardened leather on to of the head to deflect blows to the top of the head. Read some interesting stuff here.
It seems that the injuries and deaths were in the sport PRIOR to the introduction of helmets and padding. It took rule changes in 1905-1906 to make the game "safer", and it looks like we are due more rule changes to mitigate the problems we are discovering today.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
It can't both be "more common" and not "happen as often".
A helmet will prevent skull fractures, but it won't prevent your brain sloshing up against the inside of your skull due to rapid changes in velocity.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
Because for generations school funding had been diverted away from the fundamentals of an enriching education in favor of sanctioned sports.
<br>
You do realize that most high school football teams and nearly all college football teams are virtually self-supporting, right? In fact, some programs actually bring $$$ into the school. For some colleges it's millions of those $$$.
Coal miners get black lung, programmers get carpal tunnel, police officers get shot, firefighters run into burning buildings, truck drivers get in accidents. Want to know the one difference between that group of people that are subject to long term debilitating disease? We don't piss away millions of dollars and then complain we can't afford health care, because we didn't have millions of dollars to begin with. It is a risk of the job that you get paid insane amounts of money for, suck it up and quit wasting all your fucking money. I am a huge football fan but these guys are seriously the biggest crybaby pussies in the world.
If they don't wear helmets, they aren't about to go headfirst into tackling as much. The Helmets are offering fake protection. Sure, short term protection, but nothing long term.
Or figure how to make helmets that absorb all the impact.
Be seeing you...
Drowning is the most peaceful way to die. That having been said, you're least likely to drown if you swim competitively. Drowning usually happens to the people who don't know how to swim or are weak swimmers.
Additionally, competitive swimming is a non-contact sport. It's more of an exercise than a sport, like gymnastics or track.
I don't disagree with your sentiments about soccer though.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Hang gliding, bungi jumping, sky diving, piloting private planes, piano-lifting, writing bad checks, Class B fireworks, running with scissors - what is it exactly that you want to do that our oppressive statist jack-booted government is preventing you from doing?
Pretty sure he's talking about teh marijuana.
Totally nude football.
Drowning is the most peaceful way to die.
Wait, what?!? How could you even think that?
I mean yes there are _many_ worse ways to go (IE burning alive, heart attack) but drowning is far from peaceful let alone the most peaceful method by far!
The fear of predicting it about to happen due to the relatively longer time it takes, the burning of the lungs and chest trying to fight it, the feeling of taking in that first lung full of water... That is pretty not peaceful sounding!
Going in your sleep is obviously the most peaceful way to die, hands down.
Current understanding of brain aneurysms state that it feels similar to being given anesthetic and just going to sleep in seconds.
A low blood pressure attack that hits fast enough has similar effects (mild versions of which I've experienced personally) - it's only the slow onset ones that really give you more than 1-2 seconds to realize what is going on before the buzzing in the head and tunnel vision makes you numb and unconscious.
I've suffered from that last condition myself before, and have had attacks ever since I was about 10 years old.
The fast ones barely give you a couple seconds warning with a tingling sensation and loss of vision, before you simply wake up laying on the ground.
Even the slow one are not at all painful, just frightening as hell at the realization that your vision hasn't yet come back after the usual 5-10 seconds it normally does, and you just start becoming aware of the fact you can't feel your body, wondering if this will be the one time you don't snap out of it and just won't wake up.
I quit soccer after getting to the point where I was forced to do a few of these in practice, after which I felt like I had my bell rung. It isn't worth it.
You must not have been taught how to head the ball properly then. The basic point is that you should attack the ball with your forehead (usually) and not just let it hit you as you try to avoid it. Every kid at school here in the UK learns this by the age of about 8.
You're more likely to get injured by an accidental clash of heads as you jump up to head the ball with another player, rather than from the header itself.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Pro soccer players (the linked article is about a pro sport, yeah?) often have brain damage from taking hundreds of shots to the noggin
Bullshit, that's not something I've ever heard, do you have any evidence whatsoever?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I've been severely concussed from soccer. I was hit in the head three times in one game(!)
Being hit in the head by a ball when you're not expecting it is NOT the same thing as deliberately heading the ball.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Soccer does actually have higher concussion rates in youth sports than football.
Unless you use special extra-heavy balls in the US, and encourage your kids to head the ball with their temple or the back of their neck or something, I'd say that's fantastically unlikely.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
And yet every report I've seen on the subject says soccer is on par with football, or worse than football for concussions.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/mar/16/heading-taking-lot-blame-concussions-increase-socc/
Last year, high school soccer players suffered more concussions nationally than athletes in basketball, baseball, wrestling and softball combined, according to estimates from the Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) in Columbus, Ohio. Although the media has focused on concussions in football, little has been written about the effects of concussions on soccer players.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Then where are all the brain injured soccer players?
They become managers.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Listening to one of them speaking would give you all the evidence you need. I'm being harsh, though : they do seem relatively bright, when compared to soccer supporters.
(yes I _am_ bitter from seeing that stupid sport being hugely subsidized)
I'm pretty much in the "eliminate helmets" camp, but also think that eliminating substitution, or requiring, say, 10 plays from scrimmage before a player can leave the field would help too. Right now, many players are on the field for one play and they know they'll be subbed out for the next play (different yards to first down or whatever), so they go all-out no matter what.
If players had to control themselves so they could function for 10 straight plays, they might throttle back a bit. Plus it would force them to learn offense and defense, which I think would be a lot more interesting.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
I don't think there's as much "sport" in a gladitorial game as compared to our popular sporting events. If you're dealing lethal blows to one another, it takes only a momentary slip for a prime athlete to fall and high-level competition is diminished as a result of this loss.
In Boxing and MMA, there are long slugging matches, but sometimes you have one clean shot that ends the match in the first round. I'm aware that vast amounts of training had gone into living up events into that one clean shot, but it makes for a spectator event that is harder to enjoy because the battle isn't played out for others to watch.
It'll be harder to get invested in a gladiator if they only last for a couple rounds before an accidental slip ends their career.
So what you're saying is.. "I've never heard of it. I'm smart as a whip. If I haven't heard it, it can't be true!" All you had to do was go to Google (heard of it?) and type in "soccer player brain damage" and... well, I won't ruin the surprise for you.
I'll agree that swimming in a pool is one of the safer sports you can be in. For the sake of argument, change that pool to the ocean, and all bets are off. People do swim for sport in oceans, so it's a valid argument.
Anyway, taking in a lungful of water and getting pneumonia as a result isn't fun. Missing the wall that you're supposed to turn on and instead going into it head-first isn't fun either. Competitive swimming is hard stuff. You use your entire body to go as fast as you can, sometimes for as long as you can. Anyone who has done sports can tell you that when your body gets really, really run down from the competition you're in, strange things can happen. Misjudgments happen ("where's that wall? shit!" *headcrack*). Tiredness can cause you to not get your head out of the water fully and take in a big old lung of water instead of air. Even a small bit of water in the lungs can lead to sickness.
But I make these points just for the argument. People say swimming is one of the safest things in the world to do, and I have to come up with something that says, no, it's not. But to argue with myself, I had a number of swim team friends in high school and I can't remember anything really bad ever happening to any of them because of swimming. Every other sport had its broken bones, sprains, concussions (back then those didn't matter so much), and the rare ligament tear. Believe me, once you see someone go down with a ACL tear 15 feet away from you, you never want that to happen to yourself.
I undestand those that claim that these guys assume this risks for good amount of money like tose that work in the army. But this isnt such a neccesary risk. What about developing better hemets. They can bare breaking bones, but damaging your brain is something else. I cant belive that they cant develop less fashionable and lightweight protections and more hitech and less appealing head protections. For funding, research and peer finding please refer to the non-profit Aging Portfolio.