Third of former American football players report CTE symptoms, study finds

A survey of former players of American-style football has found that a third believe that they have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), brain damage associated with concussion after repeated head injuries.

CTE can be conclusively diagnosed only post mortem, and the researchers from Harvard University undertook the study to explore the lived experience of players at risk of CTE, using the term “perceived CTE” to refer to respondents’ belief that they had symptoms.

The researchers analysed data from the Football Players Health Study, a longitudinal cohort of former professionals who played after 1960, when hard plastic helmets were largely adopted. Of the 4180 players who had enrolled in that study by late …