Concussions Suffered By Football Players Can Have Long-Term Effects; Hard Hits, Dangerous Game?
COSTELLO: All this week Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been examining the concussion problem in football from the pros on down.</s>ROBERTS: This morning in the last part of his special series, "Hard Hits, Dangerous Games," Sanjay tells us about a former NFL star who paid a severe price for years of hard hits. And Sanjay joins us now from Atlanta. And you found out some stunning facts about the long-term impact of concussions and sometimes hits that would seem to be fairly innocuous.</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, it's interesting because the long-term impact is what researchers have been focused on for some time. And what they're finding is some players it can cause the sort of early, pretty early onset dementia, almost an Alzheimer's-like problem. If you look at football games, on average, for example, this season you have one concussion per game. That's why they're focused on what are the repeated concussions doing to the brain? They find people develop symptoms like memory problems, depression, and rage, eventually progressing into this early onset dementia state. Take a look.</s>GUPTA: They are thrilling and terrifying. Watch a football game and you can't miss them -- the hits. But what is the real impact? What is happening to the player's brains?</s>GUPTA (on camera): How many times did you take a hard hit playing football?</s>FRED MCNEILL, FORMER NFL PLAYER: It was one time when I had a real serious concussion. And it was so serious that I was dizzy for, like, you know, for, like, two or three weeks.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): Thirty years ago Fred McNeill was a linebacker for the Minnesota Vikings. He played for 12 seasons and in two Super Bowls. Relentlessly hitting opponents was his job.</s>FRED MCNEILL: You got to be able the move, right?</s>GUPTA: No question McNeill is robust physically. But you can tell his brain paid a price.</s>GUPTA (on camera): What has it done to you?</s>FRED MCNEILL: Well, impact is on memory. I meet people, and they talk about the conversation that we had, you know, two weeks ago or three weeks ago or a month ago or whatever. And I don't remember.</s>GUPTA: If we saw each other again, would you remember me?</s>FRED MCNEILL: Sanjay, I don't know. When I started out --</s>GUPTA (voice-over): The not knowing, it happens often. There was also rage.</s>TIA MCNEILL, FRED MCNEILL'S WIFE: It got to where I would say things that really shouldn't upset him, and he would get angry really quick. His temper was very short.</s>GUPTA: Followed by remorse.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that was the biggest thing for my dad. He felt like it was all his fault.</s>GUPTA: It wasn't, but there was no doubt he was different.</s>TIA MCNEILL: It was a moment where I realized I wasn't living with the person that I knew and married.</s>GUPTA: No one seemed to know what was happening to Fred McNeill until reports about other former NFL players who had been through similar issues. Like McNeill, they had memory problems, rage issues, and depression. Most disturbing, all died young. Could concussions, the common denominator, be to blame? Researchers at Boston University Medical School are looking deep into the brain and spinal cord of former athletes to find out. What they're seeing is startling. This is a normal brain, this one, a 45- year-old former NFL player. See the brown tangles? That's brain damage. It looks a lot like this 70-year-old brain with dementia.</s>TIA MCNEILL: To see the kind of changes we are seeing in 45-year-olds is basically unheard of.</s>GUPTA: It's called chronic traumatic encephalopathy. And here's the kicker. Those changes are directly associated with rage, memory problems, and depression.</s>FRED MCNEILL: I was actually considering not living. I was actually considering that.</s>GUPTA (on camera): You wanted to end your life?</s>FRED MCNEILL: Yes. I was just thinking it would be so much easier.</s>GUPTA: I can tell you it's hard to see Fred McNeill like that. He is doing better nowadays, but all those symptoms that he was just describing he attributes to concussions. We did reach out to the NFL to ask them about Mr. McNeill and other players like them. They gave us a statement specifically saying "What we're trying to prevent is multiple concussion without recovery. We know there are a lot of long-term effects of concussions but they have not yet been fully characterized. The whole goal of the NFL is to sit them out when in doubt, sit them out and let them recover so there aren't long-term effects." But again, this is what a lot of researchers are focusing on, the long-term impact, as you asked, of all those concussions.</s>COSTELLO: It's just so frightening. So how common is dementia among ex-football players?</s>GUPTA: Well, you know, this science is pretty new, Carol. And the lab that you saw there, they're looking at brains of former athletes, you know, obviously, after they die to figure out is there any objective evidence of these tangles and flax. They've examined 16 brains so far examined, and 15 so far out of 16 did have evidence of it. The youngest incidentally is 18 years old. So the process seems to occur and starting at very early age if it does happen.</s>ROBERTS: I have seen research, too, Sanjay, that suggest not just the big concussions that can have a cumulative effect over time. Sometimes it's the little hits just off the line where they come together.</s>GUPTA: No question. The sub-concussive hits --</s>ROBERTS: Yes.</s>GUPTA: -- and those have been harder to characterize and also John, you may have read that some people may be genetically predisposed to having their brain suffer the worse consequences of concussions. Who those people are exactly, that's another fertile area of research. So that maybe -- something people want to look into before they get in to a sport like this.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: You know, it brings up baseball because it's becoming a problem in baseball, as well with players getting in the head or getting hit in the head. Who's the first baseman for the Minnesota Twins? I cannot remember his name. It's not Joemar (ph), he's the catcher, the first baseman suffered a concussion sliding into second base and he -- he simply took the rest of the season off. He didn't want to take -- Justin Morno (ph) -- that's his name. But he took the whole season off. He didn't want to take a chance.</s>GUPTA: Probably a good advice. If he did it on his own or his coaches, other players told him to do so, that seems to be the key. If you let the brain rest after a first concussion, that second concussion is not exponentially worse. Otherwise it is as -- as you saw yesterday with Max Conrad. It could be devastating if you get two concussions right next to each other.</s>ROBERTS: Well, it's great to see all of this research coming out and learning more of about what happens out there on the playing field. Sanjay Gupta, great to see you this morning.</s>GUPTA: You too.</s>ROBERTS: Happy Thanksgiving by the way, doc.</s>GUPTA: You guys -- you too, guys. Thanks.</s>COSTELLO: The key to making a buck and getting ahead in 2011? What is it? Are you out of a job? Will you get one next year? If you have a job, will your boss actually give you a raise or maybe a bonus? "Money Magazine's" Amanda Gengler (ph) is here to tell us what we can expect.