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 "For the last 12 years, we've really focused on the long-term
effects of head trauma, including what we call repetitive head
trauma," where the impact doesn't cause a concussion, said McKee,
chief of neuropathology at VA Boston University and director of the
CTE Center of Boston University.
The VA-Boston University-Concussion Legacy Foundation Brain Bank in
Boston houses 850 human brains, most of them donated for research by
former football players or their families.
That center's research is vital to learning about a degenerative
brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), she
said, which can only be definitively diagnosed postmortem.
Among those who hope her research may help is Leonard Marshall, 58,
star player for the New York Giants from 1983-1992, who may be best
known for a hard hit on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana
during the NFC Championship Game in 1990.
Montana would not play another regular season game for almost two
years, and Marshall also was badly hurt.
In a recent interview with Reuters from his New Jersey home,
Marshall said after the impact, he didn't "remember ever getting up
off the ground.”
This was long before the NFL adopted its concussion protocol to
assess head injuries, and players were "taught to be tough" and "you
just kind of just dealt with it," he said.
Marshall suffered mood swings and memory losses for years after he
retired from the NFL at the end of the 1994 season.
"I drove seven miles to a Publix grocery store. I had no idea why I
drove there," he said.
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While McKee’s critics have accused her of trying to ruin football,
she said that on the contrary, “I’m trying to save football
players.”
"To see them come in with this disease and to see their lives cut
short and to see them declining at such early ages. That's what
really hits me. And that's what I want to stop," she said.
NFL greats Dave Duerson and Junior Seau were diagnosed with CTE
after killing themselves. In 2016, the league allotted $40 million
in funding towards neuroscience research, and pledged $100 million
towards player safety amid concerns about concussions. A 2018 report
showed the NFL had approved more than $500 million in
concussion-claims settlements.
McKee said repetitive head trauma victims include "hockey players,
soccer players, rugby, military veterans, as well as victims of
domestic abuse."
Symptoms of the disease may begin with headaches and a loss of
focus, and progress to depression, mood swings and short-term memory
loss. Other symptoms include visual or spatial difficulties,
aggression, impulsivity, suicidal tendencies and dementia.
(Reporting by Angela Moore in Boston; writing by Bernadette Baum;
Editing by David Gregorio)
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