Dr Pearce said he had seen symptoms of Parkinsonism in a number of CTE cases in which he has been involved.
Put succinctly, Dr Pearce said, if someone suddenly forgets where they are, alarm bells ring. But if someone shuffles a bit, they’re dismissed as simply getting old.
Dr Pearce characterised movement disorder as a loss of fine motor or movement control. “It’s anything from threading a needle or being able to put finger and thumb together, to more significant issues such as a shuffling gait and a risk of falling,” he said.
CTE is now linked to Parkinsonism.Credit: Jo Gay
“This research is quite significant because we’ve always thought about the mental issues, and memory, and focusing, and concentration, but we’ve rarely spoken about movement. And movement is obviously so key to us being human.”
Put succinctly, Dr Pearce said, if someone suddenly forgets where they are, alarm bells ring. But if someone shuffles a bit, they’re dismissed as simply getting old.
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A 2018 study by the same Boston research team found that the longer an athlete played a contact sport, the shorter were the odds of developing Lewy body disease linked to Parkinson’s. But the new study is the first to unearth a link between contact sport, brain stem pathology and Parkinsonism.
“Increased CTE severity has been shown to be associated with longer duration of play,” said Daniel Kirsch, an MD/PhD student and one of the authors of the study. “In this study, we found that an additional eight years of contact was associated with a 50 per cent increased risk of more severe disease in a specific area of the brain stem that controls movement.”
In a press release accompanying their findings, the researchers said: “This study underscores the importance of understanding the long-term effects of repetitive head impacts and the need for preventive measures in contact sports to mitigate the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like CTE and Parkinsonism.”