Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player • Hacker News Board

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#11

Post by robbiep » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 6:56 AM UTC

wdewind wrote: post #6

I didn't grow up playing or really understanding sports. I was one of those guys who joked about "sportsball" and stuff like that. When I started really taking weight training seriously I started having a frame of reference for understanding sports and started really appreciating them. Football is a sport that is designed to really allow people to showcase the limits of the human body. The most impressive athletes in…

That’s a highly cultural-specific viewpoint. For example Rugby union, league, AFL etc are all contact sports with huge followings - I can’t understand let alone (and probably because of my lack of understanding) stand NFL which I personally think culturally encapsulates an American approach to the world - this is the offence team, this is defence, let’s pad up and beat the shit out of the opposing side. Compared to the other three which display to my way of thinking a fluidity and flexibility that I believe to be more skilful and also a reflection of a deeper cultural flexibility. But now my cultural biases are flooding out heavily.

What is interesting however is that neither rugby union, league or AFL have anywhere near the level of concussive damage, maybe because the lack of protection leads to a different approach to bodily harm. Full disclosure, one of the products my company makes and is commercialising in Australian Rugby Union is a concussion monitoring system so this is a deep interest of mine both from the tech/commercial side but also the medical side.

You are right though, greater awareness of the risks is going to endanger these sports. A parting word of hope - we still allow boxing, and CTE is medically known as ‘punch drunk syndrome’ from the first reported cases of the medical literature.

Concussion management is a rapidly evolving field and my sister (for whom I built the side project which we are now commercialising) thinks that being able to have a biochem test like we do for heart attacks would totally change the field - big head knock, troponin-like test, then follow up and treatment as appropriate. It’s super interesting and we need to put players first whatever we do

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#12

Post by anigbrowl » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 6:57 AM UTC

isatty wrote: post #3

CTE - Chronic traumatic encephalopathy[0] for anyone else who was confused. The author uses it countless times without explaining what it is. More details - Currently, CTE can only be definitively diagnosed by direct tissue examination after death, including full and immunohistochemical brain analyses.[15] The lack of in vivo techniques to show distinct biomarkers for CTE is the reason CTE cannot currently be diagnos…

The very first line of the story says what it is: Researchers have identified the degenerative brain disease known as CTE...

It's a newspaper rather than a scientific journal so I think they can be forgiven for not expanding the acronym, just as newspapers commonly report heart attacks rather than myocardial infarctions.

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#13

Post by ohashi » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 6:59 AM UTC

wdewind wrote: post #6

I didn't grow up playing or really understanding sports. I was one of those guys who joked about "sportsball" and stuff like that. When I started really taking weight training seriously I started having a frame of reference for understanding sports and started really appreciating them. Football is a sport that is designed to really allow people to showcase the limits of the human body. The most impressive athletes in…

>The most impressive athletes in any sport in the world are in the NFL and when you think about the things that happen in any single game, they truly are spectacular.

That seems like a wildly opinionated statement in an otherwise good comment.

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#14

Post by sharkweek » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 7:01 AM UTC

wdewind wrote: post #6

I didn't grow up playing or really understanding sports. I was one of those guys who joked about "sportsball" and stuff like that. When I started really taking weight training seriously I started having a frame of reference for understanding sports and started really appreciating them. Football is a sport that is designed to really allow people to showcase the limits of the human body. The most impressive athletes in…

I'm pretty certain society will look back on football at all levels, most likely the younger "tackle" leagues especially, and think how barbaric it was in hindsight, specifically with the information we have about head injuries.

This is sad, because I really enjoy relaxing fall/winter Sundays watching NFL games, but as you said, I'm starting to really struggle with the morality of it.

I remember thinking I had just watched a player die on the field with the Ricardo Lockette injury a few years back - not a dirty hit, or anything, just the result of a violent game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BEx1BqTlhI

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#15

Post by rifung » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 7:04 AM UTC

wdewind wrote: post #6

I didn't grow up playing or really understanding sports. I was one of those guys who joked about "sportsball" and stuff like that. When I started really taking weight training seriously I started having a frame of reference for understanding sports and started really appreciating them. Football is a sport that is designed to really allow people to showcase the limits of the human body. The most impressive athletes in…

> The most impressive athletes in any sport in the world are in the NFL

If you're going make such outrageous claims at least give some explanation? How do you measure how impressive an athlete is?

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#16

Post by donquichotte » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 7:06 AM UTC

"The most impressive athletes in any sport in the world are in the NFL"

What a ridiculous statement to make! Even probabilistically this makes no sense, since the players are selected out of 3e8 out of 7e9 humans. Check out socker players, marathon runners, climbers etc and you will see that every sport has their very own geniuses.

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#17

Post by icelancer » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 7:06 AM UTC

robbiep wrote: post #11

wdewind wrote: post #6

I didn't grow up playing or really understanding sports. I was one of those guys who joked about "sportsball" and stuff like that. When I started really taking weight training seriously I started having a frame of reference for understanding sports and started really appreciating them. Football is a sport that is designed to really allow people to showcase the limits of the human body. The most impressive athletes in…

That’s a highly cultural-specific viewpoint. For example Rugby union, league, AFL etc are all contact sports with huge followings - I can’t understand let alone (and probably because of my lack of understanding) stand NFL which I personally think culturally encapsulates an American approach to the world - this is the offence team, this is defence, let’s pad up and beat the shit out of the opposing side. Compared to t…

>>That’s a highly cultural-specific viewpoint.

What is? That the NFL has the best athletes in the world?

If the NFL athletes trained for a year to do anything else, or you put all the athletes in the world into a decathalon of power/speed/strength specific events, it would be an insane blowout.

NFL players would crush every other group of athletes individually and probably combined, and I say this as someone who has worked with Rugby Union and AFL players in Australia. There is no comparison, they are the best athletes in the world for any fair value of athletics you want to use.

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#18

Post by elliottkember » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 7:06 AM UTC

robbiep wrote: post #11

wdewind wrote: post #6

I didn't grow up playing or really understanding sports. I was one of those guys who joked about "sportsball" and stuff like that. When I started really taking weight training seriously I started having a frame of reference for understanding sports and started really appreciating them. Football is a sport that is designed to really allow people to showcase the limits of the human body. The most impressive athletes in…

That’s a highly cultural-specific viewpoint. For example Rugby union, league, AFL etc are all contact sports with huge followings - I can’t understand let alone (and probably because of my lack of understanding) stand NFL which I personally think culturally encapsulates an American approach to the world - this is the offence team, this is defence, let’s pad up and beat the shit out of the opposing side. Compared to t…

Someone once explained to me that rugby is a contact sport, and American football is an impact sport. The padding allows players to hit each other harder without bruising or direct impact, while the brain still bangs around in the skull.

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#19

Post by icelancer » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 7:07 AM UTC

rifung wrote: post #15

wdewind wrote: post #6

I didn't grow up playing or really understanding sports. I was one of those guys who joked about "sportsball" and stuff like that. When I started really taking weight training seriously I started having a frame of reference for understanding sports and started really appreciating them. Football is a sport that is designed to really allow people to showcase the limits of the human body. The most impressive athletes in…

> The most impressive athletes in any sport in the world are in the NFL If you're going make such outrageous claims at least give some explanation? How do you measure how impressive an athlete is?

Context-neutral speed, strength, power metrics would all go to NFL players if you had a worldwide combine of running/jumping/lifting/etc. It would be laughable.

See my bio if you think this opinion is subjective.

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#20

Post by acchow » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 7:08 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #12

isatty wrote: post #3

CTE - Chronic traumatic encephalopathy[0] for anyone else who was confused. The author uses it countless times without explaining what it is. More details - Currently, CTE can only be definitively diagnosed by direct tissue examination after death, including full and immunohistochemical brain analyses.[15] The lack of in vivo techniques to show distinct biomarkers for CTE is the reason CTE cannot currently be diagnos…

The very first line of the story says what it is: Researchers have identified the degenerative brain disease known as CTE... It's a newspaper rather than a scientific journal so I think they can be forgiven for not expanding the acronym, just as newspapers commonly report heart attacks rather than myocardial infarctions.

For the vast majority of their readers "Chronic traumatic encephalopathy" is just as uninformative as "CTE".