Junior Seau committed suicide in his home May 2nd. When something tragic like this happens, when it’s a 12-time NFL All-Pro and a beloved figure, the collective reaction is: Why? The debate begins. Some think repeated brain trauma from playing in the NFL caused his mind to deteriorate. Others speculate that Seau’s inability to leave the game behind may have contributed to severe depression. Some even think he may have known on some deeper level that his brain was to blame – that he shot himself in the chest so his gray matter would be left intact for post-mortem examination.
So much noise. Enough to nearly drown out another side-effect – a positive side-effect -- of a high-profile tragedy like this: It’s not just about Junior Seau. All athletes at all levels will benefit from the attention his case brings to long-term health and safety issues. Example: The media’s rush to tell the story forces new terminology into society’s lexicon. In this case, CTE.
A month ago, CTE could’ve been a phone company. But now both sports fans and the medical community are talking in-depth about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a condition that causes progressive degeneration of the brain tissue from repeated pounding. Symptoms include memory loss, confusion, aggression, and depression. But here’s the catch: Those symptoms may not appear until years after an athlete has quit his or her game. Here’s another catch: No test can detect it. It can only be found during a post-mortem exam. Recently, CTE has been discovered in 20 other deceased former NFL players, several NHL enforcers, and boxers.
So much noise. Enough to nearly drown out another side-effect – a positive side-effect -- of a high-profile tragedy like this: It’s not just about Junior Seau. All athletes at all levels will benefit from the attention his case brings to long-term health and safety issues. Example: The media’s rush to tell the story forces new terminology into society’s lexicon. In this case, CTE.
A month ago, CTE could’ve been a phone company. But now both sports fans and the medical community are talking in-depth about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a condition that causes progressive degeneration of the brain tissue from repeated pounding. Symptoms include memory loss, confusion, aggression, and depression. But here’s the catch: Those symptoms may not appear until years after an athlete has quit his or her game. Here’s another catch: No test can detect it. It can only be found during a post-mortem exam. Recently, CTE has been discovered in 20 other deceased former NFL players, several NHL enforcers, and boxers.
Are Sports to Blame?
Depression is an especially telling symptom. The condition is only seen in about five percent of the general population, but in head trauma patients that number reaches 40 percent, according to Science Daily. A 2008 study by the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University investigated whether functional changes resulting from concussions could lead to depression symptoms. When looking at brain activity in the frontal lobe, researchers found that people with concussions showed a lack of activation in that region of the brain, whereas activation in healthy brains was normal. There is also a correlation between how severe the concussion symptoms are and the amount of brain activity in that region. The more severe the symptoms, the less the activity, says Alain Ptito, Ph.D., director of the Department of Psychology of the McGill University Health Centre and lead investigator for the study.
“We looked at this in athletes who had concussions and we looked at those that were depressed and those that weren’t depressed,” Ptito says. “Athletes that were depressed had the same activation patterns that we see in non-athletes with major depression.”
Do the math on a player like Seau -- and not just his concussion total. Add up the sheer number of hits. He took hits on every play at varying levels of intensity. He took hits in practice. Thousands of hits, again and again.
Now do the math on the average kid who starts playing football at, say, age six. If he plays through high school, while the early hits won’t be so intense, they will add up. If he plays through college, that’s 16 years of pounding. And what if he plays other high-contact sports like lacrosse or hockey? Mixed martial arts?
Scary numbers. And this is not a person who will ever make money playing football. This is a person who has to make money in their chosen career for a lifetime.
Do the math on a player like Seau -- and not just his concussion total. Add up the sheer number of hits. He took hits on every play at varying levels of intensity. He took hits in practice. Thousands of hits, again and again.
Now do the math on the average kid who starts playing football at, say, age six. If he plays through high school, while the early hits won’t be so intense, they will add up. If he plays through college, that’s 16 years of pounding. And what if he plays other high-contact sports like lacrosse or hockey? Mixed martial arts?
Scary numbers. And this is not a person who will ever make money playing football. This is a person who has to make money in their chosen career for a lifetime.
Now we see how Junior Seau’s case isn’t just about Junior Seau. And this is where the debate intensifies. What if, for example, a father who played high school and college ball puts his son in the local youth league. Then, at age 12, the boy has his first concussion. Should his playing days be over? Will a father who loves the game make that call?
One former player, Carolina Panthers linebacker Sean Tufts sees the football community as split into two camps regarding brain trauma. Half look at it as part of the game, an acceptable risk. The other half is more alarmed by how devastating these injuries can be.
“There are always these jokes that ‘oh, I use my head too much’ or whenever you forgot something it was easy to dismiss it as I took too many blows to the head,” Tufts says. “For a long time that was a playful joke and now people are starting to connect those dots and realize that this is a symptom of a much bigger and systemic problem.”
Tufts said when he was playing they had names for some of the symptoms they’d experience after delivering or receiving a hit, things they considered normal. “Turning off the TV” happened when your vision would shrink and then suddenly expand after hitting someone. Or maybe you had “the rollies” after a hard hit and your vision felt like it was rolling forward.
And on high school fields everywhere, for decades, how many athletes kept playing after getting their “bells rung?”
Today, better systems are in place to help protect players. Baseline cognitive testing is now used in many leagues at all ages. The testing (one brand is called ImPact) happens preseason to establish a player’s baseline level of brain function. If he takes a big hit, or shows concussion symptoms, he’s re-tested to see how much he’s been affected, and when he might be able to return to the field.
But what about the long-term effects of traumatic brain injuries? Currently there is no way to test someone for CTE, but Ptito is hopeful that with new tools, such as a higher resolution MRI, doctors will be able to diagnose this condition before it’s too late. Meanwhile, he suggests the NFL could consider having each player go through a functional neuro-imaging scan to look for signs of concussions that conventional testing can’t show. The test runs around $4,000 per person, according to Ptito. Not that much when you consider a player’s salary. But that doesn’t help the average kid on the average football field.
For those kids, even a mild concussion is now reason enough to question whether they should ever put on pads again. They have entire lives ahead of them, and the risk of having more concussions increases exponentially every time they have one. Even worse: “Studies show that the more concussions you have, the more likely you will be depressed later in life,” Ptito says.
Junior Seau’s brain has not yet been examined for evidence of CTE. But no matter what medical examiners discover, it’s ironic that after a legendary career on the field, Seau’s tragic final years could provide a positive legacy to players of all ages as awareness, education, and policy changes emerge from this debate to help minimize the risks of brain trauma on playing fields everywhere.
One former player, Carolina Panthers linebacker Sean Tufts sees the football community as split into two camps regarding brain trauma. Half look at it as part of the game, an acceptable risk. The other half is more alarmed by how devastating these injuries can be.
“There are always these jokes that ‘oh, I use my head too much’ or whenever you forgot something it was easy to dismiss it as I took too many blows to the head,” Tufts says. “For a long time that was a playful joke and now people are starting to connect those dots and realize that this is a symptom of a much bigger and systemic problem.”
Tufts said when he was playing they had names for some of the symptoms they’d experience after delivering or receiving a hit, things they considered normal. “Turning off the TV” happened when your vision would shrink and then suddenly expand after hitting someone. Or maybe you had “the rollies” after a hard hit and your vision felt like it was rolling forward.
And on high school fields everywhere, for decades, how many athletes kept playing after getting their “bells rung?”
Today, better systems are in place to help protect players. Baseline cognitive testing is now used in many leagues at all ages. The testing (one brand is called ImPact) happens preseason to establish a player’s baseline level of brain function. If he takes a big hit, or shows concussion symptoms, he’s re-tested to see how much he’s been affected, and when he might be able to return to the field.
But what about the long-term effects of traumatic brain injuries? Currently there is no way to test someone for CTE, but Ptito is hopeful that with new tools, such as a higher resolution MRI, doctors will be able to diagnose this condition before it’s too late. Meanwhile, he suggests the NFL could consider having each player go through a functional neuro-imaging scan to look for signs of concussions that conventional testing can’t show. The test runs around $4,000 per person, according to Ptito. Not that much when you consider a player’s salary. But that doesn’t help the average kid on the average football field.
For those kids, even a mild concussion is now reason enough to question whether they should ever put on pads again. They have entire lives ahead of them, and the risk of having more concussions increases exponentially every time they have one. Even worse: “Studies show that the more concussions you have, the more likely you will be depressed later in life,” Ptito says.
Junior Seau’s brain has not yet been examined for evidence of CTE. But no matter what medical examiners discover, it’s ironic that after a legendary career on the field, Seau’s tragic final years could provide a positive legacy to players of all ages as awareness, education, and policy changes emerge from this debate to help minimize the risks of brain trauma on playing fields everywhere.
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