Skip to main content

First Female Athlete to Receive Diagnosis of CTE

Medically reviewed by Drugs.com.

By Physician’s Briefing Staff HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, July 5, 2023 -- Heather Anderson, a star Australian rules football player who died last November, is the first female professional athlete to be diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

"She is the first female athlete diagnosed with CTE, but she will not be the last," researchers wrote in a paper published Friday, NBC News reported. Anderson was 28 years old when she died from what was believed to be suicide.

The finding was made possible after Anderson's family donated her brain to the Australian Sports Brain Bank, hoping to discover "whether a lifetime of exposure to repetitive head trauma contributed to her death," according to a report cowritten by one of the researchers. It was published on a nonprofit academic news site, The Conversation.

Michael Buckland, M.D., director of the Australian Sports Brain Bank, identified low-stage CTE when conducting the postmortem analysis. "There were multiple CTE lesions as well as abnormalities nearly everywhere I looked in her cortex. It was indistinguishable from the dozens of male cases I've seen," Buckland said in a news release from the Concussion Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in the United States.

Although women athletes previously had not been diagnosed with CTE, evidence suggests women are more susceptible to concussions in sports than men, according to the researchers.

"Research shows women have an equal or greater susceptibility to concussion in contact sports, but we don't yet know what that means for their risk of developing CTE," said Robert Cantu, M.D., a cofounder and medical director of the Concussion Legacy Foundation. "We urgently need to accelerate research on CTE in women so we can prevent future cases, better understand how CTE impacts their behavior and cognition, and treat those who develop symptoms."

Symptoms associated with the condition include issues with walking and balance, trouble thinking, memory loss, and behavioral changes, such as impulsive behavior and aggression, NBC News reported. Depression, apathy, substance misuse, and suicidal thoughts or behavior are others.

NBC News Article

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted July 2023

Read this next

First Responders With More Debris Exposure Have Higher Risk of Early Dementia

FRIDAY, June 14, 2024 -- More severe exposure to dust or debris among World Trade Center (WTC) responders is significantly associated with a higher risk of dementia at <65...

4.0 Percent of Seniors Had Received Dementia Diagnosis in 2022

THURSDAY, June 13, 2024 -- In 2022, 4.0 percent of adults aged 65 years and older reported ever having received a dementia diagnosis, with similar percentages seen for men and...

Many With Firearm in the House Store Firearms Loaded, Unlocked

THURSDAY, June 13, 2024 -- Among individuals with a firearm kept in the house, a considerable proportion report that the firearm was stored loaded, and about half report that the...

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.