The new and improved concussion thread II - Hockey Hall of Famer Henri Richard had stage 3 CTE at time of death, study finds

[MeHateHe]

Paywall, I'm assuming.

Related, but perhaps not concussions.

Mark Parrish shares his story of pain killer addiction and alcoholism. Finally admitted he needed help and went into rehab just before season was paused.

(He owns part of a vodka company and his wife sells wine. They have the alcohol in the house locked up and only his wife knows the combo.)

Still deals with anxiety. Especially public appearances.

Interesting to read this story, and then read all the boys-will-be-boys comments about Tampa players drinking to excess in their celebrations. Ask yourself if you saw someone so impaired by any other drug that they can barely communicate properly, how would you react? But because it's booze, it's a funny thing, right?

Alcohol is a serious drug, which has significant health impacts - it leads to tens of thousands of hospital visits in Canada every year - yet we don't treat it with the respect it deserves. Hockey is awash in booze, and it's often used as a self-medication tool - sometimes 'just' as a way to help them sleep. It's also a pretty addictive substance.

Obviously this is tricky, and not simple. Alcohol is something that most people use, and most use without issue (although I'd suspect that the number of addicted people is a lot higher than official sources suggest). And the alcohol industry is heavily integrated with sports, so any attempt to look into this would be met with resistance.

This isn't about ban this, or make that illegal, but looking at the use of some drugs in hockey while laughing off alcohol use is ignoring a pretty sizeable pachyderm in your chamber.

 

[Llama19]

 

[Llama19]

 

[gstommylee]

Good luck getting the union to agree to ban every single hit to the head. They won't agree to ban fighting cause it won't stop it from happening.

 

[Llama19]

 

[Llama19]

Former NHL player JT Brown pledges brain to science

To quote:

"While playing with the Minnesota Wild in his final National Hockey League season in 2018-19, JT Brown became the second active NHL player to pledge his brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation in Boston.

Brown said that he was in 26 fights as a professional and had three fights in junior hockey.

“I think about my brain health, with the style of game I played,” he said. “I was a small player, stature wise, and played gritty and played with lots of energy and tried to hit everything that moved… I don’t know what the impact of the fighting has been on my brain. That’s part of the reason I’m doing this.”

CTE can only be detected through a postmortem examination of the brain. The disease has been linked to mood swings, depression and violent behaviour and is caused by repeated blows to the head, researchers say.

Dr. McKee has diagnosed CTE in former NHL players Derek Boogaard, Reggie Fleming, Rick Martin, Stan Mikita, Jeff Parker, Bob Probert and Larry Zeidel. Former NHL player Steve Montador also had CTE, according to researchers with the Canadian Sports Concussion Project in Toronto.

Dr. McKee also has discovered CTE in the brains of four former junior hockey players. All four – none of whom advanced to the NHL – died by suicide before the age of 30."

Source: www.tsn.ca/nhl-jt-brown-brain-concussions-science-1.1690993

 

[tarheelhockey]

4 in 12 weeks? Holy smokes, that's bad.

 

[Llama19]

Minor leaguer whose anger was ‘like a light switch’ had CTE, widow says

To quote:

"Former minor-league hockey player Tyler Amburgey was posthumously diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, the brain-withering disease linked to repetitive brain trauma in contact sports, his widow told TSN in an interview.

Amburgey was 29 when he died of COVID-19 in August 2020. His widow, Aimee Eigenberger, said that he had suffered from anxiety, depression and other symptoms of post-concussion syndrome for several years before his death.

“There’s no question CTE is also a problem for minor-league athletes,” Nowinski said. “That’s concerning because they don’t have the same support systems as major-league athletes to help them if they do develop neurological disorders. Also, there are far more minor-league hockey players who never made it to the NHL than there are NHL players, and we don’t have any idea how many of the minor-league players are dealing with problems like this.”"

Source: www.tsn.ca/minor-leaguer-whose-anger-was-like-a-light-switch-had-cte-widow-says-1.1702583

 

[LadyStanley]

Zebra recovering from pregame accidental hit to head.

 

[Llama19]

 

[Noldo]

A Finnish startup is developing equipment to measure impacts to the head (quite uninformative website: NSII).

Testing it in football in Finland, allows almost real time measurement of forces on impact in terms of Gs. Their hypothesis is that impacts at 40+ G may start to cause permanent damage. For reference, they are measuring that an ordinary header in football causes impact around 20-25 G.

 

[Llama19]

A decade after his own loss, Boogaard feels sorrow and anger over Jimmy Hayes’ death

To quote:

"In a six-year NHL career before his death in 2011, Derek suffered numerous concussions, was sent to drug rehabilitation twice and was given copious amounts of medication. During his final two years in the NHL, doctors with seven teams gave him 13 Toradol injections. During the 2008-09 season alone, he was prescribed 1,021 pills from roughly a dozen different doctors, according to his medical records.

“How many players have to die before the NHL acknowledges that there’s a problem?” Boogaard said. “Ten years ago, with Derek, I maintained that it was a learning experience for everybody, so that Derek didn’t die in vain. Well, we continue to just go through the same thing. After me it was Steve Montador’s dad. And now it’s Jimmy’s dad saying he wants to bring this to everyone’s attention, so it doesn’t happen to everyone else. I guess it’s going to take more players dying, maybe three or four back-to-back again, or maybe more, for the NHL to do something."

Source: www.tsn.ca/a-decade-after-his-own-loss-len-boogaard-feels-sorrow-and-anger-over-jimmy-hayes-death-1.1708676

 

[Llama19]

 

[Llama19]

Father of Steve Montador files second wrongful death lawsuit against NHL

To quote:

"The father of the late Steve Montador, who has been embroiled in a six-year fight with the National Hockey League, opened a new front in the legal battle by filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the NHL in Cook County court in Chicago.

In his new 34-page claim, Paul Montador claims that his son sustained “thousands of sub-concussive brain traumas and multiple concussions, many of which were undiagnosed and/or undocumented.”

“The NHL, armed with vastly superior managerial, medical, legal, and other resources to gather, analyze, and understand sub-concussion, concussion and head injury data, failed to keep Steven Montador reasonably safe during his career and misled him on the permanent ramifications of brain trauma,” the lawsuit says."

Source: www.tsn.ca/father-of-steve-montador-files-second-wrongful-death-lawsuit-against-nhl-1.1713358

 

[Llama19]

https://twitter.com/rwesthead/status/1457372655682785285

 

[Llama19]

 

[Llama19]

 

[Llama19]

 

[LadyStanley]

Former NFL CB Phillip Adams had 'severe' CTE when he allegedly killed 6 people and himself

An examination of Adams' brain tissue found that he was suffering from 'unusually severe' Stage 2 CTE.


Not hockey, but concerning development

 

[Llama19]

 

[Llama19]

 

[LadyStanley]

Sigh

 

[Llama19]

Former Canadiens star Backstrom had CTE, researcher says

To quote:

"Ralph Backstrom, who won six Stanley Cup championships with the Montreal Canadiens during a 17-year NHL career, had a severe form of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease that has been discovered in athletes, military veterans, and others with a history of repeated hits to the head.

Backstrom’s wife, Janet, confirmed his posthumous diagnosis. Backstrom died Feb. 7, 2021, at the age of 83 in his home in Windsor, Colo.

After donating his brain to researchers at Boston University, Backstrom’s family was contacted in October with exam results showing he had stage 3 CTE. (There are four stages.)

“Ralph would have been proud of this research to know that even after he died, he could be helping others by increasing our knowledge about CTE," Janet Backstrom said in an interview with TSN. "This is now part of Ralph's legacy."

Backstrom’s posthumous diagnosis of CTE is noteworthy because he was known as a scorer and playmaker, not as a particularly belligerent player. His career high for penalty minutes in a season was 51.

Researchers believe CTE not only comes from concussions that might be suffered during a fight on the ice, but also from the repeated blows to the head and jarring body checks that occur routinely during a game.

“This is significant because it draws attention to the fact that former players who were known as skill players are being diagnosed with CTE,” said Chris Nowinski, the co-founder and chief executive of the Concussion Legacy Foundation. “This goes beyond fighters and big hitters.”"

Source: www.tsn.ca/former-montreal-canadiens-star-ralph-backstrom-had-cte-researcher-says-1.1753405

 

[LadyStanley]

Very sad. His brain was donated to check for CTE but results haven't been released yet.

 

[LadyStanley]

Paywall. But 40% loss of career to injury is awful.