NFL Legend Junior Seau: Apparent Suicide, Possible Brain Injury, Stirring Tragedy

When football great Junior Seau was found dead at his home yesterday, from a gunshot wound to the chest, his family and the police and reporters and sportswriters everywhere made the logical leap from concussion to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) to depression to suicide. All you have to say is "Duerson." Select stories here, here, and here, along with our previous coverage.

But just last Friday, our favorite science radio show aired a thought-provoking segment about how very much we still don't know about athletes and concussion. University of Michigan sports neurologist Jeffrey S. Kutcher, MD, cautioned listeners to follow the clinical evidence, which does not explain how repeated traumatic brain injury (TBI) might cause problems with brain function later in life. The discussion was inspired by a new stage play, Headstrong, running at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City through May 13. How we wish we could have attended last night's performance, with a scientific postdiscussion moderated by Ivan Oransky of Reuters Health and Retraction Watch. Video posted here when available.

[Image: Purdue University/Thomas Talavage]

Concussion, Traumatic Brain Injury, and the National Football League: Duerson Family Sues

This week the family of Dave Duerson filed a lawsuit against the National Football League (NFL) and helmet maker Riddell, claiming they deliberately concealed information about the known risks of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) due to repeated concussions. We covered Duerson's 17 February 2011 suicide in our 11 March 2011 post, "TBI in the NFL: Now All You Have to Say Is 'Duerson'." More about the new lawsuit in the Chicago Tribune.

Earlier this month, as the football season drew to a close, we noticed some new science and new publicity to bolster the Duerson family's complaint. A few you may wish to read:

• "Many Hits, Rather Than A Big One, Pose Greatest Concussion Risk" on National Public Radio.
• "Brain trauma experts call for 'hit count' to prevent injuries to school athletes" in the Guardian.
• "It's Time to Quit Ignoring Sports Head Trauma's Very Real Dangers" on the Daily Beast.

And with that we leave the subject of football until the autumn leaves fly.

[Image: via Chicago Tribune]

Traumatic Brain Injury: Duerson Autopsy Results

More details are emerging about the devastating effects of repeated concussions and traumatic brain injuries on the brain of late Chicago Bears great Dave Duerson. (See our previous coverage.) Last week's piece in The Guardian takes readers into the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), commonly known as the NFL Brain Bank. Read more in "The NFL star and the brain injuries that destroyed him" on guardian.co.uk. We recommend the article to anyone interested in the history and future of sports-related traumatic brain injury. Those of you with stronger stomachs may wish to begin with this 2-minute video, as fascinating as it is disturbing.



In related news, a group of 75 former players have sued the NFL for failure to inform them about the risks and harmful long-term effects of concussion. Helmet manufacturer Riddell is also named in the lawsuit.

We worry that ongoing research on hyperbaric oxygen and TBI may be slowed by recent findings of dysfunction and mismanagement at the DCoE. Let's hope new challenges bring new focus and purposeful acceleration instead.

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

TBI: Concussion Tests Doing More Harm Than Good?

Baseline concussion tests may be rushing seriously injured athletes back onto the field of play too soon, warns one clinical neuropsychologist. Christopher Randolph, PhD, of Loyola University Chicago, found poor sensitivity and low reliability in the popular ImPACT (Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing) program. His paper was published in the Jan/Feb 2011 issue of the journal Current Sports Medicine Reports. Read a short summary report in Yahoo! Health.

In a related postscript to our March post on TBI In The NFL, a postmortem examination has confirmed that Dave Duerson suffered from neurodegenerative disease caused by concussions and other repetitive head trauma. Read the full LA Times story here. Duerson committed suicide in February 2011.

[Image: AP/National Institutes of Health]

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

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.