A neuropathologist thinks so:
The neuropathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu of the University of Pittsburgh, a leading expert in forensic pathology, determined that Mr. Waters’s brain tissue had degenerated into that of an 85-year-old man with similar characteristics as those of early-stage Alzheimer’s victims. Dr. Omalu said he believed that the damage was either caused or drastically expedited by successive concussions Mr. Waters, 44, had sustained playing football.In a telephone interview, Dr. Omalu said that brain trauma “is the significant contributory factor” to Mr. Waters’s brain damage, “no matter how you look at it, distort it, bend it. It’s the significant forensic factor given the global scenario.”
Related posts:
- Football is linked to dementia, and why it should be banned from high schools
- Football player infections
- The lifelong effects of a concussion, can just one hit result in permanent damage?
- Dilemma and high school football
- The obesity epidemic in ex-football players
- Chris Benoit and concussions
- The cost of an NFL career
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It is a leap to conclude that: cerebreal atrophy that must necessarily have been caused by a distant history of presumed repetitive closed-head injury with brain trauma; major depression that must necessarily have been the result of cerebral atrophy; suicide that must necessarily have been the result of intractable depression.
Sorry, but the conclusions beg proof. But the forensic pathology people, especially in Pittsburgh, love the flamboyant public conclusions. Dr. Cyril Wecht would be proud.
Correlation does not equal causation nor does the provided history necessarily encompass the underlying mechanism for the condition at hand. It will be interesting to see how the study was designed and how the authors were able to control for depression associated with the simple ending of the careers of these football players (a task that they have focused their lives on for a substantial period of time) and the incumbent loss of the limelight.
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