Citation

Love S, Solomon GS. Am. J. Sports Med. 2014; 43(5): 1260-1264.

Affiliation

Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, USA Vanderbilt Sports Concussion Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA gary.solomon@vanderbilt.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0363546514535187

PMID

24907288

Abstract

Over the past decade, athletic-related chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has garnered a great deal of attention in the popular press and, more recently, in the scientific press. With increasing frequency, sports medicine practitioners and providers are faced with questions from the parents of high school football players about CTE and the risk posed to children who participate in this or other contact or collision sports. The purpose of this review was to summarize the research on CTE in an attempt to provide some evidence-based answers to frequently asked questions in clinics from parents. Addressed are (1) the definitions of CTE and its symptoms, (2) the evidence for CTE in football, (3) abnormal tau protein, (4) the use of neuroimaging in CTE diagnosis, (5) risk for CTE, (6) CTE diagnosis in youth, (7) CTE and its relationship to suicide, and (8) contact and collision sports as a risk factor for permanent brain injury or death.

Keywords: American football;

Language: en