PRE-CONCUSSION IMPACTS
• Head Knocks
• Falls
• Tackles
• Punches
• Heading Balls
• Domestic Violence
CTE can develop from more than concussion.
Domestic Violence:
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated brain injuries. It is incurable and can only be diagnosed once a person is dead.
In an Australian first, a group of pathologists identified CTE in two women who endured decades of intimate partner violence. Both women had sustained repeated head injuries.
Researchers raised concern about the cognitive and behavioural impacts on domestic violence victim-survivors, who may unknowingly develop CTE as a result of their injuries. Read More
Cumulative Hits:
Around 10 percent of head impacts experienced by footballers are harder than the average concussion. That means that if a football player gets 1,000 head impacts in a season, around 100 hits were harder than that one concussion. For every concussion a football player experiences, they experience 340 head impacts of greater force.
Studies consistently show that athletes exposed to hundreds of repetitive head impacts, in the absence of a concussion, still have changes to brain function, blood biomarkers of brain injury, and structural changes on imaging that look similar to changes in athletes with diagnosed concussions.” Read More
Youth and Sports:
CTE is being found in young high school players who have died. In a study, researchers examined four postmortem brains from teenage athletes who had sustained head impact injuries 1, 2, 10 and 128 days prior to death.
Neuropathological analysis of these brains showed a spectrum of post-traumatic pathology, including one case of early-stage CTE and two cases with abnormal accumulation of tau protein. Comparative brains from four age-matched athletes without recent head injury did not show the pathological changes observed in the head-injury group. Read More
Treatment and Research:
- Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) has shown promise in improving outcomes for individuals with PCS.
- Ongoing research aims to explore HBOT’s effectiveness in reducing symptoms, enhancing recovery, and offering therapeutic benefits for patients with potential CTE and related conditions.
- BreatheHope is funding such research.
