Study confirms Duerson’s traumatic brain injury

Former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson, who killed himself in February, had traumatic brain damage, according to tests done by the Boston University School of Medicine.

“When you look at the brain microscopically, it’s indisputable,” Dr. Ann McKee of the university’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy said at a news conference. “He has the classic appearance of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).”

Duerson, who at age 50 shot himself in the chest, had at least 10 concussions in an 11-year National Football League career and showed symptoms of brain injury such as worsening short-term memory and problems with impulse control, doctors said at the news conference.

He left a note reading “Please see that my brain is given to the NFL’s brain bank.”

Duerson’s case was “moderately advanced,” McKee said. “The likelihood is that if he hadn’t had the CTE, he wouldn’t have developed those symptoms that he was experiencing at the end of his life and perhaps he wouldn’t have been compelled to end his life.”

More needs to be done to educate current players on the risk of brain injury, to enact rule changes to make the game safer and to help those affected by conditions related to head trauma, said Bruce Laird, a former NFL defensive back with the Baltimore Colts and San Diego Chargers, and president of Fourth and Goal, a group dedicated to helping retired NFL players in need.

“Research must continue and remedies must be enacted,” Laird said in a news release.

Duerson, a four-time Pro Bowl selection, helped the Bears and New York Giants to Super Bowl championships and was a four-time member of the Pro Bowl after starring at Notre Dame.

Dr. Robert Cantu, one of four co-directors of the CSTE, said at a news conference that such results normally are published first, but the Duerson family wanted them released earlier. Duerson’s former wife, daughter and three sons attended the news conference.

“We have been given the gift of closure,” said his son, Tregg. “We accept this gift with great humility, as we are mindful of other families that have lost loved ones and still bear the burden of unanswered questions.”

Although there is no treatment for CTE, research is being done to find ways to identify it in living people.

Chris Nowinski, another co-director of the CSTE along with Dr. Robert Stern, said “the latest version of the NFL’s guidelines (on concussions) are well thought out. And, I think, with the state of the science today, it’s about the best we can do.”

But he said the problem starts much earlier, in youth football.

“The 6-year-olds are playing the same games as the pros when we know that their brains are far more susceptible to this damage,” he said. “My next focus is how do we change youth football so that a kid doesn’t show up in the NFL with 10,000 hits to their head already?

The NFL last year gave $1 million toward research to the CSTE, which was created in 2008 and is a collaboration between the BU School of Medicine and the Sports Legacy Institute, headed by Nowinski.

“It’s amazing to me that we have pitch counts in youth baseball to protect children’s elbow ligaments,” Nowinski said, “but we do not count how often we hit them in the head to protect their brains.”

Bloomberg News and Associated Press contributed to this report.