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4 | TheBucknerClarion.com February 2016 In 2012, former super heavyweight kickboxer and heavyweight mixed martial artist Gary Goodridge was diagnosed with degenerative dementia – a type of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE. "It sneaks up on you," he told Inside MMA. "It's like a shark in the water that you can't see." Goodridge, who has a penchant for flashlights because he "loves the light," lives in a very dark place, mentally. He said if it were not for his meds, he would have committed suicide. "It's got me crippled," he explains, as he bouts with a disease that strangles his brain cells, causing memory loss, speech problems and explosive behavior. Former college football player Michael Keck probably could have related to Goodridge before his life was cut short at 25. He was diagnosed with CTE – the Alzheimer's-like disease that former San Diego Charger linebacker Junior Seau suffered from. Seau ended his own life with a bullet through the chest. Boston University describes CTE as a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma. CTE has been known to affect boxers since the 1920s – as some were referred to back in the day as "punch drunk." Recent reports have confirmed CTE in retired professional football players and other athletes who had a history of repetitive brain trauma. According to Boston University, this trauma triggers progressive degeneration of the brain tissue, including the build-up of an abnormal protein called tau. It is characterized by brown spots that form around the brain's blood vessels, interrupting normal functioning and eventually killing nerve cells. These changes in the brain can begin months, years or even decades after the last brain trauma or end of athletic involvement. The brain degeneration is associated with memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and eventually, progressive dementia. Dr. Ann McKee, chief of neuropathology at the VA Boston Healthcare System, has worked with a team to evaluate 170 brains to understand the pathology of CTE. She also evaluated Keck's brain and said she never saw that kind of brain pathology in someone under 30. Keck played football for 16 years, according to a recent CNN article, starting at the tender age of six. Reportedly, he had more than 10 concussions – with the very first one at eight – and never received treatment. A star athlete and stellar student, he received several college offers to play football, but opted for the University of Missouri in Columbia. During his freshman year, he suffered a concussion on the field as a result of head trauma, where he CTE: Inconvenient Truth or Hype? By Tonia Wright lost consciousness. Headaches, neck pain, insomnia and anxiety persisted. He couldn't remember things or concentrate. Keck returned to the field a few days afterward—with symptoms intact. By the beginning of his junior year, now at Missouri State, he hung up his cleats. His G.P.A. plummeted to 1.9 and he eventually dropped out of school with just 12 credits left to earn a bachelor's degree. Life and daily living took a turn as well. Keck became increasingly depressed, suicidal and abusive to his wife, Cassandra. The marijuana he used did little to dilute the anxiety and headaches. Keck knew something was wrong. He studied the similarities he shared with Seau. He also heavily researched CTE. Keck believed he had it. "The challenging part about CTE is that it can't be diagnosed in anyone who is living," Dr. Greg Canty, a sports medicine physician at Children's Mercy Hospital, told accessHealth News. "There's a lot of debate in the medical community like sports medicine, neurology and neurosurgery. Is this a new disease process, or is this redescribing something old? It appears to be something that we've known about for years because of some chronic changes in the brain. What we don't know is exactly what leads to CTE. There is no direct evidence that having a concussion leads to CTE." Canty stresses that there is a lot of gray area when it comes to CTE. He said that although concussions are a problem and that the medical community worries that it may be related to CTE, they don't know that definitively. "Most people don't understand there is not a direct correlation that has been proven yet." The other potential unknown is if CTE is related to small hits to the head repetitively or a big hit that leads to a concussion. Canty underscores one major fact: there are more questions about CTE than answers. As for Keck, he was so convinced that he had the disease, he told his wife that if he died to donate his brain to Boston University. Keck died from cardiac arrest in 2013. He was diagnosed with CTE. Canty said that improving athletic safety is number one. But what worries him are the people who automatically assume because they've had a concussion and maybe had a few neurological symptoms that they are on the pathway to definitely having CTE. This includes those 22-year-old athletes who may have had a few concussions and begin having headaches and who may forget where they placed their keys…Canty said many of them start to wonder. "In some situations, people have committed suicide because they were convinced that all of their problems were a result of CTE," he said. "We just don't know that yet. What we do know is that most concussions recover without incident."

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