WASHINGTON — Concussions are common occurrences at all levels of football. Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow and Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger are among the players who suffered concussions this season and, like many, they quickly got back on the field.
But the after effects of the hit can be devastating and not immediately apparent.
“It’s a transient disturbance of neurologic functioning,” said Per Brolinson, team physician at Virginia Polytechnic University. Simply put, a concussion rattles the brain. According to Brolinson, when a player sustains a concussion, the brain moves in the skull between six to eight millimeters. Significant brain damage occurs when the brain hits the skull too hard. Symptoms range from uncontrollable emotional outbursts or disorientation to dizziness and blurred vision.
Mike Goforth, head athletic director at Virginia Polytechnic University explains how its football program is implementing the HIT system. (Kristian Weatherspoon/MNS)
The danger can come when a player doesn’t realize that he has sustained a concussion and keeps playing. In addition, players many times choose to ignore their symptoms and get back in the game.
The NFL is ramping up attempts to prevent concussions, according to spokesman Greg Aiello. It’s creating new penalties for unnecessarily harsh hitting and making the return-to-play policy after a player has been concussed more stringent.
Researchers also have focused on the long term consequences of sports concussions to try to mitigate the damage.
And the wife of one player who has sustained brain trauma has asked Congress to get involved.
Eleanor Perfetto, of Annapolis, Md., visits her husband, Ralph Wenzel, every day at the Somerford assisted living facility in Annapolis. Her husband of 22 years is now living in the locked facility because of brain trauma caused by concussions sustained while he was playing for eight seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“All of the normal things that you would do during the day, can you dress yourself? Can you bathe yourself? Can you go to the bathroom alone? Can you feed yourself? Ralph’s at the point where he needs complete help with all of those things,” she said.
Per Brolinson, head team physician at Virginia Polytechnic University talks about concussions and treating players with them.
(Kristian Weatherspoon/MNS)
Wenzel, a guard, sustained numerous concussions; he often continued playing with the concussions.
Perfetto recalls a time when she returned home from work to find Wenzel cooking dinner. But he had forgotten to prepare side dishes for the steaks he’d grilled, something he’d never forgotten before.
“But when this happens, you don’t think dementia or brain trauma,” she said.
In 1999, Wenzel was diagnosed with mild traumatic brain disorder.
THE DIAGNOSIS
After years of watching her husband’s condition worsen, Perfetto took Wenzel for a second medical opinion and was told that his symptoms resembled those of other past NFL players suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE.
This disease was first seen in the 1920s in boxers with head injuries, but in recent years, it has been seen in football players, said Chris Nowinski, president of the Sports Legacy Institute, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the prevention of sports- related brain trauma.
Eleanor Perfetto, wife of former NFL player Ralph Wenzel, says the NFL should take a more active stance in addressing the connection between concussions and long term brain trauma. (Kristian Weatherspoon/MNS)
At least seven late NFL players were diagnosed post-mortem with CTE, Nowinski said. The condition can only be confirmed by an autopsy of the brain. This degenerative brain disorder occurs when a build-up of a protein called TAU occurs in the brain. This protein in a normal brain helps neurons that control mental abilities pass signals to the body. When this transfer is disrupted, a buildup of the protein occurs, which eventually destroys brain cells, leaving the person with little or no mental capacity.
“There’s a real urgency to educate people about it,” Nowinski said. “With CTE you could literally stop generating new cases in people tomorrow if we knew more about what we were dealing with.
The Sports Legacy Institute has partnered with Boston University to study the donated brains of several late Hall of Fame football players so researchers can better identify the link between concussions and brain injuries to help prevent the onset of CTE or to be able to treat it in its early stages.
Researchers are studying the entire brain in search of the TAU protein to identify its effects.
Washington Redskins linebacker Alvin Bowen explains why he enjoys playing football. (Kristian Weatherspoon/MNS)
But for former players suffering brain trauma now, Perfetto advises that families be prepared for memory loss and worse.
“This might sound cold in a way, but you need to get all of your legal and financial advice together because you don’t exactly know when the day is that your husband is not going to be able to help you make those decisions,” she said. “Talk about them now, while you can.”
She testified at congressional hearings in October about brain trauma in football players. In addition, she is working to encourage the NFL to increase its acknowledgment of the link between the sport and severe brain trauma and do something about it.
“I have heard players that have been interviewed and they’ve said, ‘Well, I make so many millions of dollars. If something happens to me, my family will be taken care of,’” Perfetto said. “I challenge them: Come spend a day with me here at Somerford to show them what the last 15 to 20 years of their life might look like.”