Effects Of Repeat Head Trauma In Sports And Combat

Effects Of Repeat Head Trauma In Sports And Combat
Thursday, May 10, 2012
By Maureen Cavanaugh, Joanne Faryon, Patty Lane

A study in January found ex-football players are 59 percent less likely to commit suicide than non-athletes of the same age.

This statistic may call into question the theory that former Chargers player Junior Seau committed suicide last week as a result of head injuries he developed during his career.

But Michael Lobatz, director of the Rehabilitation Center for Scripps Health, said there is a link between depression and suicide and a link between brain injury and depression.

"If you have a brain injury, have depression, you are therefore at increased risk for the development of suicidal ideations, so there is a continuum there," he said. "But there are so many factors involved in why a person would get to that point that you really understand that that's an extraordinarily complex issue and you really need to be careful about the assertions that you make about that."
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