Dr MacSweeney takes the main stage at TEDx Athens 2022
Contact Sports, Sub-Concussions and CTE
The talk gave an overview of our understanding of CTE, telling the story of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) which causes a combination of symptoms including severe mood changes, memory loss, disturbance in thinking ability and eventually dementia.
CTE arises from repetitive impacts to the head and a series of sub-concussions, which can largely go unnoticed.
The stories of many professional athletes were told including American NFL player Mike Webster, who died aged 50, English soccer player Jeff Astle who died at 59 and American Football player Zac Easter, who died aged 24 – all had evidence of CTE.
Dr MacSweeney spoke about the future and what needs to be done to give players more protection with effective and inexpensive interventions to reduce the number and force of both concussive and sub-concussive impacts, referencing the many interventions underway, including a new 2022 production Rezon Halos, the only legal CE marked protective headwear product in U.K. and Europe. Rezon’s head band reduces the transmission of rotational forces to the brain by at least 60%.
Dr MacSweeney also spoke about the importance of diagnosing CTE during life and the possibility of now doing this through new sophisticated MRI and DTI imaging, developed by the team at Re:Cognition Health and King’s College London. Finally, Dr MacSweeney informed of a promising new-generation medication HMTM developed by TauRx Therapeutics, as a potential new treatment for Alzheimer’s, to halt the progression CTE.
Re:Cognition Health is passionate about education and raising awareness about conditions affecting the brain and mind. We hope this TEDx talk inspires people to take action and pay attention to how they protect and manage brain health, particularly in contact sports.