Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as CTE, is a neurodegenerative brain disease that has symptoms like memory loss, confusion, aggression, rage and sometimes suicidal behavior. This disease was recently found in the brain of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez, who was convicted of multiple murders and hung himself in his jail cell in April. After his death, his brain was analyzed and showed that he had a very severe form of CTE, a rare case for someone of Hernandez's age (27). The discovery of this disease has made a lot of his decisions during his life make sense to his family and friends.
CTE is believed to be a result from repeated trauma to the head, which Hernandez had more of enough of playing professional football for years. I've heard of cases similar to this but never anything to this magnitude. It's a well-known fact that professional football has caused many head injuries, and they have been sued multiple times over it, but it's hard to pick a fight with the most powerful sports league in the United States. On Thursday, Hernandez's fiancee filed a federal lawsuit against the NFL and the New England Patriots. This article was written to make people aware of this problem, and so people who are dealing with similar symptoms may be able to get help before it gets too bad and results in, say, the murders of multiple people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/sports/aaron-hernandez-cte-brain.html?mcubz=3
Olivia Wall- Wow, that disease sounds awful, and very complicated to cure/treat. So many people have probably had this without even knowing, therefore are not treated correctly. And that totally makes sense because of all the football players injuries.
ReplyDelete