Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Research Paper

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Pages: 4

Josephine Cicchella Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy English IV
Lukasik
January 16,2017
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
Imagine a disease that could change the ability for a person to act or think just by playing a sport. The rare diseases is becoming more common and could affect all athletes. Going unnoticed until the athlete dies. Chronic traumatic Encephalopathy is the deterioration of the brain that ultimately impacts cognition, mood, and judgement.
“Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive disease of the brain found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma including, symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic subconcussive hits to the head that do not cause symptoms (“What
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Athletes who begin playing contact sports at a younger age have a greater risk. “Several published studies show that exposure to head impacts before age twelve is associated, with worst outcomes than starting after age twelve“(Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy). Athlete's playing time and their career timeline will also play a role in the amount of risk they are at for CTE. For example, when retiring from his contact sport Mike Webster ( a steelers player who helped win 4 super bowls in the 70s ) suffered depression and dementia, later his brain was thought to been through the equivalent of "25,000 car crashes" over his 25 years of playing football in high school, college, and the NFL(NFL Players with CTE). Showing the amount of damage chronic traumatic encephalopathy can have on the brain. Another athlete who had CTE was Dave Duerson (safety who won a superbowl) he suffer from depression following a few years after he retired. “He stated that he knew inside of him there was something wrong ,with that statement he wrote a suicide not to give his brain to the N.F.L brain bank for study, later concluding he had CTE” (NFL Players with CTE). A recent study by Crisco examined head impact exposure in collegiate football players and found average number of impacts received by an individual player during the season was 420 with a maximum of 2,492(Crisco). However, Not …show more content…
Hard hits and tackles are apart of the game . Therefore prevention would require a whole switch in the game. Improving the protective equipment ,however lowers the risk of Athletes in contact sports. A study by Viano and halstead compared American football helmets from 1970-2010 and reported that newer are heavier with more padding . The larger helmets were better at absorbing forces and impacts associated with concussions(“What Is CTE?”). The right size of a sport specific helmets can make a huge difference.(“What Is CTE?”) Adding additional support to the head on impact will lower the potential