TBI In The NFL: Now All You Have To Say Is "Duerson"

"Please, see that my brain is given to the NFL's brain bank," wrote the late Chicago Bears great Dave Duerson in his suicide note.

And with these words and a gunshot to the heart, to preserve his brain, Duerson shoves new rules and new helmets into a tough new perspective. That repeated concussions amount to traumatic brain injury (TBI) has long been known. As Dr Brian E. Moore summarizes in the Wicked Local Eastham, out of Cape Cod (Orleans), Massachusetts:

Duerson's suicide is one in a series of self-inflicted deaths by former football players, and it again raises the question of whether repeated traumatic brain damage, known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, has played a role in the depression or dementia from which many former football players suffer.

See also the excellent piece by Bill Dwyer of the Los Angeles Times. Since the league is looking into serious preventive efforts about 40 years too late, as Dwyer observes, effective treatment must be the focus for a few generations of NFL players. In these blogposts we have frequently covered the increased activity in clinical research on hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) for TBI. Mostly for soldiers.

Little did we realize so many casualties of Soldier Field and dozens of other stadiums might benefit, too.

O2.0 is the news blog of HyperbaricLink, the independent web guide to hyperbaric oxygen therapy.