Chronic Encephalopathy is brain disease that mainly affects people with persistent brain tumors veterans and athletic people. Bennet Omalu was a neuropathologist and physician who happened to be the first person to discover Chronic Encephalopathy in some football players.
Mike Webster, a football player in the National Football league, was the first to get diagnosed with chronic Encephalopathy after a severe head injury. Justin Strzelczyk was the offensive line football player that made it through nine complete seasons of National League after which he dies at a tender age of 36 due to traumatic Encephalopathy (Omalu et al., 2017).
Keana Strzelczyk, the wife of Justin Strzelczyk, a football player, experienced the life of living with a person affected by chronic traumatic encephalopathy and noted the behavior his husband exhibited. Dr. Julian Bailes was a medical commander that monitored retired sportspersons that believed Bennet Omalu's discovery of Chronic Encephalopathy. He also met Omalu's first patient, football player Mike Webster. He claimed that blows on the head accompanied by a concussion could have dangerous long-term brain effects on players (Safinia et al., 2016).
Dr. Steven DeKosky was a medical researcher in the Neurology department that confirmed the autopsy report of Mike Webster presented by Dr. Omalu. He confirmed that the football player Mike Webster suffered brain damage after some hits on his head. He said his situation resembled the brain damage exhibited by wrestling persons after severe blows on their heads (Omalu, et al., 2017).
Dr. Joseph Maroon was a professor and also took part in the neurological surgery department as the vice chairman of Pittsburgh medical facility. He studied concussions and the various ways for their prevention to avoid the development of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Dr. Elliott Pellman worked with the NFL as a rheumatologist as well as involving in the research team. He took the concussion signs shown by the players lightly by allowing the players back in the field. He went against any scientists that associated football with CTE (Omalu, et al., 2017).
Dave Duerson was a football player in the Chicago Bears team that shot himself regarding stressful moments accelerated by his CTE conditions that developed from the concussions originating from serious head blows (McKee, Mez & Abdolmohammadi, 2017). Andre Waters, recorded as the strongest hitting defender played for the Arizona Cardinals and Philadelphia Eagles. He committed suicide after it was discovered later that had suffered CTE after undergoing brain damage from head hits in the field. The brain damage caused him stress hence he shot himself (McKee, Mez & Abdolmohammadi, 2017).
References McKee, A. C., Mez, J., & Abdolmohammadi, B. (2017). Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in Football Players-Reply. Jama, 318(23), 2353-2353.
Omalu, B., Small, G. W., Bailes, J., Ercoli, L. M., Merrill, D. A., Wong, K. P., ... & Fitzsimmons, R. P. (2017). Postmortem Autopsy-Confirmation of Antemortem [F-18] FDDNP-PET Scans in a Football Player With Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Neurosurgery, 82(2), 237-246.
Safinia, C., Bershad, E. M., Clark, H. B., SantaCruz, K., Alakbarova, N., Suarez, J. I., & Divani, A. A. (2016). Chronic traumatic encephalopathy in athletes involved with high-impact sports. Journal of vascular and interventional neurology, 9(2), 34.
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