Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head, has been found posthumously in the brain of a 29-year-old former soccer player, the strongest indication yet the condition is not limited to athletes who played violent collision sports such as football.
The researchers at Boston University and VA Boston Healthcare, who have diagnosed scores of cases of CTE, said Patrick Grange of Albuquerque represents the first named case of CTE in a soccer player. On a 4-point scale of severity, his was considered Stage 2.
Soccer is a physical game but rarely a violent one. Collisions occur, either between players or a player and the ground, but the most repeated blows to the head might come from the act of heading an airborne ball – to redirect it purposely – in games and in practice.
Grange’s parents, Mike and Michele, said Patrick – who died in April after being found to have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – was especially proud of his ability to head the ball. They recalled him as a 3-year-old, endlessly tossing a soccer ball into the air and heading it into a net, a skill he continued to practice and display in college soccer and top-level amateur and semiprofessional leagues.
Grange suffered a few memorable concussions, his parents said – falling hard as a toddler, being knocked unconscious in a high school soccer game and once receiving 17 stitches in his head after an on-field collision in college.
“He had very extensive frontal lobe damage,” said Dr. Ann McKee, the neuropathologist who performed the brain exam on Grange. “We have seen other athletes in their 20s with this level of pathology, but they’ve usually been football players.”
The damage to his brain, McKee said, corresponds to the part of the head Grange would have used for headers. But she cautioned about broad conclusions.
“We can’t say for certain that heading the ball caused his condition in this case,” he said. “But it is noteworthy that he was a frequent header of the ball, and he did develop this disease. I’m not sure we can take it any further than that.”
CTE is believed to be caused by repetitive hits to the head – even subconcussive ones barely noted. Once considered unique to boxers, it has been diagnosed during the past decade in dozens of deceased football players and several hockey players.
Symptoms can include depression, memory loss, impulse control disorders and, eventually, progressive dementia.
