A post-mortem examination recently revealed that former Canadian hockey great, Bobby Hull suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy – a progressive degenerative brain disease affecting patients with repeated concussions and multiple traumatic brain injuries.
Hull, who was also known as The Golden Jet, was a Hall of Fame forward and two-time NHL MVP, helping the Chicago Blackhawks to Stanley Cup victory in 1961.
Hull passed away two years ago, and last week, it was confirmed that he suffered from CTE, a disease that has been diagnosed in former hockey and football players post-mortem.
The Chief at Mass General Brigham’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Centre, Dr. Daniel Daneshvar has authored the largest study on CTE to-date and found that the number and strength of head impacts, and not concussions, are the main driver of CTE.
He says players in high-impact sports are at greatest risk, but also those in the military.
“We’ve diagnosed CTE in a number of athletes, including in 17 of the first 18 former NHL players whose brains have been studied for analysis. So it’s those repeated hits to the head that likely caused his CTE.”
Dr. Daneshvar says improvements in safety equipment and a delay in hitting in younger players is helping to address the issue, but, because frequency is an issue, changes need to be brought in in high-level practice as well.
“70 per cent of head impacts occur in practices,” says Daneshvar, “so if we change the way we practice, we reduce 70 per cent of hits to the head, to make sure we protect our next generation of athletes.”
