Evaluation of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in Football Players

JAMA reports High Prevalence of Evidence of CTE in Brains of Deceased Football Players

[rogergraham]

As a former NFL player I have no doubt that every player that makes it to the NFL and Plays has or will at some point suffer from the effects of repeated collisions and blows to his brain. Now that the medical doctors and the NFL agree that repeated blows to the brain can cause CTE, with a wide array of symptoms from memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and ALS. What needs to happen now is for scientists to discover test to diagnose and determine if the disease shows up in living players not Postmortem. That would be as they say; a game changer. My fear is that technology already exist but for the sake of the future of the game as we all currently enjoy it, for the violent hits the game would no longer resemble what fans pay to watch. I doubt fans would pay to watch 7 on 7 at the professional level. I could be wrong if you look at most high school and college games. Most not all resemble 7 on 7 just played with 11 against 11. Back to my point if the science and technology currently exist to diagnose CTE in living NFL, college and high school players Break the News! Let players know and if they still wish to play the game they will know the risk. For many of us we were never informed of the possible long term effects to our brains. There were no protocols in place. If you got your "bell rung", got knocked out in a game you might miss a play or two to recover then you were sent back on the field and expected to play like nothing happened. Sadly, it still happens every Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, Monday and Thursday night in the NFL even with concussion protocols in place. It's a big business the game of football and no one wants to kill the Golden Goose. Maybe that's why CTE can only be diagnosed Postmortem.