1/3 of former NFL players believe they have CTE

A 3rd of former NFL players surveyed said so they believe they have chronic traumatic encephalopathyor CTE.

According to NPR, Harvard University conducted a survey of 1,980 former NFL players who played between 1960 and 2020, and 681 of them said they believed they had developed a brain disease. More than 230 players said they had experienced suicidal thoughts, and one other 176 reported being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or one other form of dementia.

Even after researchers controlled for predictors of suicidal thoughts or ideations, retired players who believed they had CTE were still twice as likely as others to report that they had experienced frequent suicidal thoughts or self-harm. Currently, nonetheless, the one sure solution to diagnose the disease is post-mortem brain testing, which is problematic since it is difficult to find out what symptoms are brought on by the event of CTE in living former NFL players.

According to Rachel Grashow, a neuroscientist at Harvard University and lead writer of the study, the secret is to discover and treat any symptoms before players begin to believe they have CTE, which may result in depression or thoughts of self-harm.

“The key finding from this study is that many of the conditions common to former NFL players, such as sleep apnea, low testosterone, high blood pressure and chronic pain, can cause problems with thinking, memory and concentration,” Grashow said.

Grashow continued: “While we wait for advances in CTE research to better explore the experiences of living gamers, it is imperative that we identify conditions that can be treated. These efforts may reduce the risk of players prematurely attributing symptoms to CTE, which can lead to feelings of hopelessness and thoughts of self-harm.”

More than 300 former NFL players have been posthumously diagnosed with CTE, and lots of of them allegedly developed symptoms of cognitive decline akin to memory loss and mood swings.

Junior Seau, a former University of Southern California and San Diego Chargers Hall of Famer who shot himself within the chest and committed suicide in 2012, was declared he had CTE after a brain scan by the National Institutes of Health.

According to ABC 10, Seau spoke with The Athletic’s Jim Trotter while still working for ESPN, and Seau warned that football needs a greater deal with player safety. Trotter now believes Seau’s comments about former players were actually about him.

“Those who say the game has changed for the worst; they don’t have a father who wouldn’t remember his name because of the game. If everyone had to wake up to a dad who didn’t know his name, didn’t know his child’s name, and wasn’t able to function normally. I mean, they will understand that the game has to change,” Seau told Trotter in an interview.

While the link between CTE and suicidal thoughts continues to be unclear, Dr. Ross Zafonte, one of the study’s authors and a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, told NPR that suicidal thoughts experienced by gamers could also be resulting from: other symptoms and never necessarily CTE.

“It could also be related to aspects akin to isolation, chronic pain, depression, cognitive impairment, even heart problems – all of these aspects are related to former players, and all of these can contribute to the worsening of any pathology, and all this may actually cause problems, Zafonte said.

Zafonte continued: “The assumption that everybody will understand that is the issue. People are, rightly, obsessive about their concerns about CTE. We should not attempting to invalidate this in any way. But treating people for extraordinary things that may only worsen this pathology can alleviate the symptoms.

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