Australian researchers confirm world’s first case of dementia linked to repetitive brain trauma in a female athlete
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월요일, 7월 3, 2023
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Researchers at the Australian Sports Brain Bank have today reported the world’s first diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a female athlete.
Key Points:
- Researchers at the Australian Sports Brain Bank have today reported the world’s first diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a female athlete.
- Heather’s family donated her brain to the Australian Sports Brain Bank hoping to better understand why she died.
What is chronic traumatic encephalopathy?
- It is increasingly associated with athletes who play contact sports, such as football, boxing and martial arts.
- Athletes with long careers in contact sport are at particular risk, especially if they play from an early age.
- Read more:
Repeated head injury may cause degenerative brain disease for people who play sport – juniors and amateurs included
A sporting life
- She played representative football in the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory before being drafted into the inaugural season of the AFLW in 2017.
- Anderson played a single season with the Adelaide Crows, during which she won a premiership and suffered a career-ending shoulder injury.
Was this diagnosis expected?
- The Australian Sports Brain Bank team believe Anderson is a “sentinel case” we can learn from.
- Although Australian women have historically been excluded from the sports most associated with repeated head injuries, this is changing.
Are women more prone to CTE than men?
- There is emerging evidence that women are at significantly higher risk of mild traumatic brain injury (concussion) and may suffer more severe symptoms.
- Concussion alone does not cause CTE, but an athlete’s number of concussions is a reliable indicator of their cumulative exposure to brain trauma, which is the biggest predictor of CTE.
- Given their growth in participation and the enhanced risks they face in sport, it is concerning that women and girls are underrepresented in concussion research.
A disease that does not discriminate
- This world-first report of CTE in a female athlete is proof the disease does not discriminate and lends urgency to calls for greater representation of women in brain injury studies.
- Efforts to reduce concussion in women’s sport must first address resource inequalities between men’s and women’s sport.
- This includes giving women access to quality training and coaching support, as well as greater attention from sport science and medical research.