TBI: Substrates Of Dementia

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or better known as CTE has gained momentum in areas of public awareness and scientific involvement in recent years due to the popularized sport on American Football. During recent years, the media has been swaying and educating the public on the adverse outcomes that CTE can initiate. However, the first discovery of this disease was diagnosed by pathologist Harrison Martland and can be related back to the late 1920’s; the first true cases were identified in the physical sport of boxing. During that time, CTE was commonly known as dementia pugilistica meaning “punch drunk” from the wobbly nature of boxers during repetitive hits to the head.1,2 It was determined that dementia pugilistica (also known as boxer’s

According to the Centre for Disease Control New Jersey, roughly 1.4 million people sustain traumatic brain injuries in the United States from the result of contact sports. Out of those 1.4 million people, 50,000 die due to the severity of their brain injury.“But brain injury is preventable. Surely given what we already know about the brain and getting at least a glimpse of it’s awesome complexities, we should not be making sport or deliberately trying to do it damage,” says Joan Beck in her article, “Stop Pretending Boxing is a Sport”. Violence in sports should be removed because, it is treacherous to the human body and leads to severe injuries; especially head injuries.

Jessica Firger writes “In many circumstances--if not most-- frequent blows to the head have effects that may last a lifetime, a condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).” This disease causes a variety of psychiatric, and neurological symptoms including memory loss, depression, anxiety, aggression and dementia (Firger). None of the blows have to result in unconsciousness, in fact, most people diagnosed have never had severe brain trauma or concussions (NFL Concussions Fast). Early studies found a disease in correlation to boxing, a condition called dementia pugilistica, or “punch-drunk syndrome” (Alzheimer’s and Dementia). Studies for dementia pugilistica began in 1929, outlining the symptoms as memory loss, confusion, dizziness, and personality changes. (Alzheimer’s and Dementia).

Overall, this article explores the connection between youth concussions and long term degeneration of cognition and motor skills. Athletes who were concussed as late-teens have a high rate of Alzheimer’s and cognition impairments, as early as 30 years after the concussion. Two groups were compared, one who had sustained concussions at this late teen stage, and those who had never been concussed. Various neurological tests were conducted such as the Mini-Mental State Examination, and the Rey-Osterreith Complex Rigure Test, along with a test for motor skills. The MMSE test found no substantial differences between the two groups. However, the concussed group scored lower on the RCFT test, and a lower response time in the motor skills test. They

In America, the sports industry is one of the largest and most powerful country; whether the sport is football, baseball, basketball, or any of the other sports the country has. Recently reports and documented cases have risen involving some of these sports’ greatest athletes, as well as current players, dealing with concussions (Famous sports concussions, 2012). Numerous athletes, some of them being the sport’s highest profile players, were found to have several mental illnesses and diseases, that have been attributed to head injuries sustained while they were playing their sports. The biggest and most predominant of these injuries is concussions. They can cause not only immediate issues, but also a lifetime of health problems (Smith, 2009). Sports related concussions lead to brain deterioration, which leads to long lasting effects throughout life.

Traumatic brain injury is any damage caused to the brain. Individuals with TBI may show aphasia-like symptoms, yet the characteristics of TBI include mostly cognitive processes deficits. Those characteristics include disrupt orientation, attention, memory, visual processing, and executive functions problems. Penitents with TBI experience a blackout that can last anywhere between a few minutes up to months and usually wake up confused and disoriented. They do not have any recollection of the events that occurred. In addition to the common characteristics mentioned earlier, TBI patients exhibit communication deficits that relate to poor cognitive functioning such as problems with word finding, grammatical, spelling, reading, and writing. The cause of TBI is very straightforward, unlike SLI or ASD. Any injury to the head, for example motor vehicle accidents, falls, blast trauma, and more, can cause a TBI. These in turn can cause damage to multiple areas of the brain and impair motor, speech, language, and cognitive functions as discussed. It is important to note that unlike ASD that usually

This paper connects contact sports with degenerative brain diseases. It also shows that CTE is not only connected to football because of the continuous tackling inducing trauma to the brain, but also soccer where heading the ball can often cause brain damage. This is supported by research of retired NFL football players and soccer players whose brains showed evidence of CTE. Also when the Mayo Clinic studying the brains of those who did not participate in contact sports showing no evidence of CTE. Based on scientific evidence degenerative brain diseases such as CTE are caused by successive concussions. Since concussions are one of the most common brain injuries seen in contact sports today there is a definite association between contact sports and degenerative brain diseases.

The main idea of this article is to determine whether NFL football players are subjects to have more head trauma related diseases later on in life such as MCI and Alzheimer’s. The purpose of this experiment is to prove this theory to be true. Christopher Randolph executed this study by comparing the neuropsychological test results from two groups of without a history in participating professional sport “(1) 41 demographically similar adults with no cognitive changes and (2) a clinical sample of 81 people diagnosed with MCI” (Randolph). After all the testing and surveys, the results were clear; professional athletes are more likely to have a form of MCI or Alzheimer’s when they get older.

Recurrent concussions can lead to late life cognitive Impairment In retired professional football players. 50,000 head injuries result in death each year and most injuries are classified as mild traumatic. Traumatic Brain Injuries have been classified as significant, emotional, and functional disabilities. This study wanted to show if recurrent concussions lead to neurodegenerative dementing disorders, Parkinson's, Alzheimer’s, and psychiatric disorders such as depression. The patients in this study played at least 2 years of professional football but their age group varies from recent professional players to professional players before World War ll.

Players in the NFL have been diagnosed with cognitive diseases such as dementia and alzheimer 's, and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) at a rate of about thirty-five times more often than the general population (Breslow). There is not much argument that the risk of developing a cognitive disease is due to the violent nature of the game. The concussion problem is often justified by the players knowledge and acceptance of the risks of playing football. While players accept the risks of participating in a sport that is violent in nature, more measures should be taken are to make the game as safe as possible for its players.

Alzheimer’s disease is the progressive loss of memory and mental functions. The disease affects memory, thought control, language, and other cognitive functions. The disease typically appears with old age and is often found age 60. Alzheimer’s causes the brain to develop clumps and tangles fibers in the brain tissue along with the loss of neuron connections. Throughout the brain, proteins are abnormally distributed and they form tangled bundles of fibers and amyloid plaques. Some neurons fail to function properly and lose their connections, which are necessary for the transmission of messages to the body. The hippocampus is the key brain structure in the formation of memories and often experiences the first signs of damage.

Recent epidemiological studies have linked mild traumatic brain injury as a risk factor for dementia. Estimated that 100 to 300 per 100,000 people seek medical attention for mTBI annually worldwide. Due to not all persons with mTBI seeking medical attention it is estimated that 600 per 100,000 have a mTBI annually.

“From 2001 to 2009, the annual number of sports-related TBI emergency department visits in individuals age 19 and under climbed from 153,375 to 248,414, an increase of increase of 62 percent” (Lowrey and Morain 290). A Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) or Concussion in most cases is when there is a severe blow to the brain. Not all TBIs are the same and not all of them can be treated the same, but what they do have in common is that they changes lives negatively and should be address accordingly. Americans should give more attention to the issue of Traumatic Brain Injuries in sports because it takes more time than a regular injury for symptoms to reside, players usually do not come back the same, and could possibly lead other medical issues.

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Mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) are amongst the most common injuries affecting approximately 42 million individuals annually (Gardner & Yaffe, 2015). This incidence rate is inaccurate as many mTBI are not reported (Gardner & Yaffe, 2015). Such injuries are thought to increase susceptibility to neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s disease (PD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) (Gardner & Yaffe, 2015). AD accounts for up to 80% of all senile dementia and is characterized by cognitive deficits that progressively manifest into severe cognitive and behavioral impairment (Elder et al., 2010). Such symptoms are causally associated with amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles