Showing posts with label Chris Henry. Show all posts

Friday, 2 July 2010

18-game NFL season idea pains Pro Bowler Wilber Marshall

FloridaToday.com
July 1, 2010
by Pete Kerasotis

Once upon a time, the NFL played a 10-game regular season. Then 12 games. Then 14. Then 16.

And now?

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is dropping some not-so-subtle hints about expanding the regular season to 18 games.

Wilber Marshall thinks he knows why.

"Money," he said.

Shocking, huh?

Marshall is the former Astronaut High standout who later had a great career for the Florida Gators that earned him induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. Then he assembled 12 NFL seasons that resulted in two Super Bowl championships and three Pro Bowl appearances.

He knows a little bit about football and what makes that oblong ball go round.

Yeah, obviously it's money.

But what particularly troubles Marshall and many other current and former NFL players is a perceived disregard the league has for the toll football takes on the body.

Marshall knows all too well about that.

For years now, doctors have told him he's going to need knee and hip replacement surgery -- on both knees and hips. He is 48.

It can take him a half-hour or longer to get out of bed. When he was recently in Titusville visiting family (he lives in Virginia) even the humidity adversely affected him. So do other weather changes. He's resisted prescription pain medication, but sometimes he has no other choice.

"I take meds just to walk," he said. "I don't like taking them. I know what they do to the liver. I saw what happened to Walter."

Walter was his friend, Walter Payton, the legendary Hall of Fame running back who died at 44 from autoimmune liver disease and bile duct cancer. Ever since losing his friend, Marshall has championed various organ donor programs.

Meanwhile, he feels the aftermath of his NFL career every day, and as he hears more and more reports about the long-term effects of head injuries, it gives him pause, especially because Marshall recently lost his father to Alzheimer's disease.

"So far, my head's good," he said. "It's just the rest of my body that doesn't work."

Chris Henry, it appears, wasn't as fortunate.

The news this week is that Henry, the former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver who died in a traffic accident last year, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a form of degenerative brain damage caused by multiple head hits.

According to an ESPN The Magazine story, researchers discovered CTE in 50 deceased former athletes, many of whom were former NFL and college football players.

Henry was 26 when he died on Dec. 17, a day after he jumped or fell off a moving pickup truck that his fianc�e and mother of his children was driving after they had a spat. Now, Henry's family is wondering whether his erratic behavior -- one witness said he threatened to kill himself -- was more a byproduct of brain damage rather than the passion of the moment.

Wilber Marshall wonders, too.

"Love makes you do crazy things," he said, "but maybe there was also something wrong from all the hits to the head."

One thing isn't disputable.

Football is a brutal sport that routinely destroys the bodies of those who play it.

Earlier this year, one of Marshall's contemporaries, Hall of Fame linebacker Harry Carson, revealed that he suffered 12 to 18 concussions in his NFL career, and that today, at 56, his mental health is an ongoing concern.

The list of early deaths and debilitating, degenerative brain damage among former NFL players grows longer almost by the day.

Always well-spoken and eloquent, Carson these days champions the cause of retired NFL players. He also says that if he had to do it over again, he wouldn't have played football.

Against this backdrop, the league wants to expand the regular season to 18 games, while eliminating two preseason games, which already are fairly meaningless.

"They should keep it at 16 games and eliminate the two preseason games anyway," Marshall said. "But you know how it is. It's all about the NFL making money, and not about the players' health."

Last April, the NFL said it is gifting $1 million to the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University. That might sound like a lot of money. But for a billion-dollar industry like the NFL, it's a token. It's sort of like beer companies telling people to drink responsibly at the end of commercials where adults act in the most irresponsible way when there is a brew to be imbibed.

I'm sure the NFL is concerned about head injuries. Why wouldn't they be? It's just that many of its past and present players believe the concern pales in comparison to its most overriding interest.

Money.

Young player had brain damage more often seen in NFL veterans

CNN

By Madison Park, CNN

July 2, 2010 8:28 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Young, athletic and troubled -- NFL player Chris Henry might have been a football clich�.

After being arrested four times, suspended by the league three times and released once by the Cincinnati Bengals, the wide receiver appeared to be on a personal and professional comeback.

But all that ended in December 2009. Henry died after falling from the bed of a moving pickup during a fight with his fianc�e. His death was considered a tragic and bizarre end to a life plagued by behavioral problems.

This week, findings from Henry's brain examination reverberated through the sports world, raising questions about head injuries and safety in high-contact sports.

Doctors found evidence of brain damage, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, that has been observed in retired players who've had many concussions. Unlike those older players, Henry was 26 when he died.

Chris Henry's brain sample had brown discolorations, a tau protein buildup, inflammation and white matter changes.

In healthy brain tissue, virtually no protein tangles, which show up as brown spots, are visible.

CTE is also known as dementia pugilistica, because career boxers who've suffered repeated blows to the head have been known to develop the syndrome. Sudden stops and collisions can cause the brain to slosh inside the skull.

Its effects are mainly neurobehavioral. These symptoms include poor decision-making, behavioral problems, failure at personal and business relationships, use of drugs and alcohol, depression and suicide.

"The effect on the brain appears to be damages to the emotional circuitry of the brain," said Dr. Julian Bailes, chairman of neurosurgery at West Virginia University.

"We think Chris exhibited some of the characteristics of the neurobehavioral syndrome of CTE," he said at a news conference Monday. "We don't know if there is a cause and effect."

The neurologists at the Brain Injury Research Institute at West Virginia University did not draw any association between Henry's actions and the disease.

"His case highlights the fact there is documented damage in someone young and actively playing," said Bailes, a former doctor for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Bengals coach: Henry 'beacon of hope' before death

The syndrome is believed to be caused by large accumulations of tau proteins in the brain that kill cells in the regions responsible for mood, emotion and executive functioning. Tau proteins are also found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

The findings regarding Henry's brain raised unsettling questions: Could CTE contribute to misbehavior of football players? If Henry, a seemingly healthy athlete in his mid-20s, had signs of CTE, could other young athletes have this syndrome, too?

Dr. Jon Weingart, professor of neurological surgery and oncology at Johns Hopkins University, said extrapolating from one case, like Henry's, would be a "big leap."

"That would be misleading," he said. "There's not enough data. ... To think that this is something brewing in many players -- there's no data to support that statement."

Weingart said the relationship between multiple traumas and head hits and CTE is not a proven cause and effect. At this point, it's a correlation.

Sports Illustrated: Concussions and football: Is the game too dangerous for our kids?

In 2009, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at the Boston University School of Medicine reported that an 18-year-old multisport athlete who suffered multiple concussions also had CTE, a finding that a neuropathologist described as "shocking."

MRIs and CAT scans are unable to detect CTE. Detecting the syndrome requires brain samples, which cannot be given until a person is dead.

The samples are colored with special microscopic stains. In Henry's brain, doctors found a tau protein accumulation, inflammatory changes and white matter changes that were significantly abnormal.

The fibers in the brain had brown discoloration and showed significant damage.

In previous findings of former NFL players, the brown tangles flecked throughout the brain tissue resembled what might be found in the brain of an 80-year-old with dementia.

Dead athletes' brains show damage from concussions

Henry could've had a genetic predisposition for the type of brain injury, because a majority of the brains with CTE contained the gene called the apolipoprotein E3 allele.

"We may be seeing a genetic trend that Chris is in the 70 percent of those diagnosed with CTE, who have a special genetic sign," said Bailes, the West Virginia University neurosurgery chairman. "Perhaps that may be a clue as to who's at risk for this to develop."

Genetic factors could make some people less able to tolerate subtle trauma to their brains. For example, some high school athletes get a concussion and struggle afterward, while others who experience the same degree of head bump recover without a hitch.

"There's some variability of how someone is able to handle and recover from trauma to the brain," Weingart said.

Henry's case has "sparked a lot of social debate and reflection and was scientifically valuable," Bailes said.

"We want to continue to study. We don't have all the answers. We're also looking, as soon as we can, to find treatment and prevention," he said.

NFL medical heads and Goodell convene on brain injuries

The NFL has recently pledged to step up its efforts on head injuries and named new co-chairs and members to its medical committee. The league has also changed guidelines prohibiting a player suffering a concussion to practice or play.

Monday, 28 June 2010

WVU doctors: Chris Henry had chronic brain injury

Associated Press
June 28, 2010

By VICKI SMITH (AP) � 7 hours ago

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. � Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry suffered from a chronic brain injury that may have influenced his mental state and behavior before he died last winter, West Virginia University researchers said Monday.

The doctors had done a microscopic tissue analysis of Henry's brain that showed he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Neurosurgeon Julian Bailes and California medical examiner Bennet Omalu, co-directors of the Brain Injury Research Institute at WVU, announced their findings alongside Henry's mother, Carolyn Henry Glaspy, who called it a "big shock" because she knew nothing about her 26-year-old son's underlying condition or the disease.

Henry died in December, a day after he came out of the back of a pickup truck his fiancee was driving near their home in Charlotte, N.C. It's unclear whether Henry jumped or fell. Toxicology tests found no alcohol in his system, and an autopsy concluded he died of numerous head injuries, including a fractured skull and brain hemorrhaging.

But Bailes, team doctor for the Mountaineers and a former Pittsburgh Steelers physician, said it's easy to distinguish those acute traumatic injuries from the underlying condition he and Omalu found when staining tiny slices of Henry's brain.

Bailes and fellow researchers believe chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is caused by multiple head impacts, regardless of whether those blows result in a concussion diagnosis. A number of studies, including one commissioned by the NFL, have found that retired professional football players may have a higher rate than normal of Alzheimer's disease and other memory problems.

What's interesting, Bailes said, is that Henry was only 26, and neither NFL nor WVU records show he was diagnosed with a concussion during his playing career.

But it doesn't take a collision with another player for brain trauma to occur.

"The brain floats freely in your skull," Omalu said. "If you're moving very quickly and suddenly stop, the brain bounces."

And over time, with repetition, that causes big problems.

CTE carries specific neurobehavioral symptoms, Bailes said � typically, failure at personal and business relationships, use of drugs and alcohol, depression and suicide.

"Chris Henry did not have that entire spectrum and we don't know if there's a cause and effect here," Bailes said. "It certainly raises the question and raises our curiosity. We're just here to report our findings. That may be for others to decipher."

Henry's personal struggles were well documented.

Although he was a vital part of the Bengals' offense as a rookie, he ended that season with an arrest for marijuana possession. After a playoff loss to Pittsburgh, he was arrested on a gun charge in Florida.

Henry was suspended for half a season in 2007 as the league cracked down on personal conduct.

When he was arrested a fifth time, a judge called Henry "a one-man crime wave" and the Bengals released him.

But Henry got a second chance and played 12 games in the 2008 season.

Teammates said they'd noticed a change his demeanor, and at the start of the 2009 season, he described himself as "blessed" and said he was turning his life around.

Glaspy gave Bailes permission to examine her son's brain in detail.

"I was a little scared," she said. "It was something new to me. I'm still trying to educate myself as to what it means. Some of it makes sense with some of the behavioral patterns in Chris � just like mood swings and the headaches.

"Hopefully I can share whatever they share with me with other parents and help the NFL deal with the matter of being hit in the head and concussions and to educate ourselves as mothers and fathers when we send our kids out there on the field."

Omalu first came across CTE, a condition often seen in boxers, after studying the brain of Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame lineman Mike Webster. Webster died in 2002 of a heart attack at age 50. He had suffered brain damage that left him unable to work following his career.

Bailes said he and Omalu have now analyzed the brains of 27 modern athletes, and the majority showed evidence of CTE. But it's found in only a small number of players, he said.

"I think football is a great sport, and we want to make it safer," Bailes said, "but we have to continue to move forward with changes made recently and take the head impacts out of the sport as much as possible."

Former Bengal Henry Found to Have Had Brain Damage

June 28, 2010

Former Bengal Henry Found to Have Had Brain Damage

By ALAN SCHWARZ

Chris Henry, the Cincinnati Bengals receiver who died during a domestic dispute last December, has been identified by experts as the first player to have died with trauma-induced brain damage while still active in the N.F.L.

Dr. Julian Bailes and Dr. Bennet Omalu of the Brain Injury Research Institute at West Virginia University announced on Monday that Henry, 26, had developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the progressive brain disease whose recent discovery in some retired N.F.L. players has raised questions of football�s long-term safety risks.

The 22nd professional football player to be given a diagnosis of C.T.E., Henry is the first to have died with the disease while active after 2007, when prior C.T.E. findings prompted the N.F.L. to begin strengthening rules regarding concussion management. The fact that he developed the condition by his mid-20s � the youngest previous C.T.E. case was the lineman Justin Strzelczyk, 36, who had been retired from the Pittsburgh Steelers for five years before his death in 2004 � raises questions of how many current N.F.L. players might have the condition without knowing it.

�As we got the results, my emotion was sad � it�s so profound,� said Bailes, the chairman of the department of neurosurgery at West Virginia and a former team physician for the Steelers. �I was surprised in a way because of his age and because he was not known as a concussion sufferer or a big hitter. Is there some lower threshold when you become at risk for this disease? I�m struggling to see if something can come out positive out of this.�

In a statement, a co-chairman of the league�s head, neck and spine medical committee, Dr. Hunt Batjer, said: �Our committee has and will continue to address all issues relative to head injuries in current players.�

A message for the union spokesman George Atallah was not returned.

Caused exclusively by brain trauma, C.T.E. cannot be diagnosed in a living person; only microscopic examinations of brain tissue can identify the protein deposits and other abnormalities that mark the disease. So active players who might react to the Henry finding by seeking a test before continuing their careers must make do with unknowns.

�It�s very emotional to hear � it rattles me,� said Sean Morey, a special-teams player now with the Seattle Seahawks, who is a co-chairman of the union�s brain-injury committee. �The fact that this has been found that guys played against last year, an active player, I think it�s sobering. You have to ask yourself how many are playing the game today that have this and don�t even know about it.�

Like many of the other players found to have had C.T.E. after their deaths, Henry had behavioral problems in his final years that might have been at least partly a result of the disease, which is linked to depression, poor decision-making and substance abuse.

He was arrested five times in a 28-month stretch for incidents involving assault, driving under the influence of alcohol and marijuana possession. The league suspended him several times for violating its personal-conduct policy.

Henry caught 12 passes for 236 yards in the Bengals� first eight games last season before he broke his arm and was put on injured reserve.

Henry died in Charlotte, N.C., on Dec. 17 after falling out or jumping out of the back of a pickup truck driven by his fianc�e, Loleini Tonga. The head injuries that killed Henry were not related to the C.T.E. finding because the proteins and other changes that mark C.T.E. develop only over time, Bailes said.

Bailes said that he had not found evidence in news reports that Henry had sustained any diagnosed concussions during his N.F.L. career, and that he would soon make a request for related information from the Bengals. Bailes said he did know that Henry had not reported any concussions during his two seasons at West Virginia, because Bailes also serves as a Mountaineers team physician and had access to those records.

Bailes said he planned to speak with Henry�s family members to learn if he had sustained any notable hits or head injuries at Belle Chasse High School just outside New Orleans.

�I don�t want to imply that this is an N.F.L.-only phenomenon,� said Bailes, who wondered if problems are set up �while the brain is young and vulnerable, and it sustains an injury.�

He added: �Players spend 17 years banging heads in the pros on every play and you think it�s exposure based. Now with Chris Henry being so young, we have to rethink that.�

Near the end of last season, the N.F.L. strengthened several rules regarding concussion management, including the requirement that players with brain injuries not return to the same game or practice, and that they be cleared by independent experts, rather than team doctors. The three leaders of the league�s concussion committee resigned and were replaced by two neurosurgeons who vowed to chart a new course for research.

The N.F.L. is working with the union and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on an information brochure on concussions that is worded far more strongly than the one given to the players since 2007.

�We have to educate the players,� Morey said. �The players have to have the ability to have informed consent.�