Week 9 Post 3: CTE Stories

     I had learned about victims of CTE before, both Webster and Hernandez. But, I came across an interview of Mike Webster in his 40's that I hadn't seen before. Watching it, I noticed multiple things; one being that he looked decades older than he actually was at the time, and the second being that by his speech, it's obvious that something is wrong. He goes on multiple tangents and struggles to finish sentences, not able to remember words or what his point was at all. It was incredibly sad to watch knowing that he was unaware of his diagnosis, and makes it all the more difficult to know that no victim actually knows that they have CTE when they are struggling with the symptoms during their life.

    Right now, there's no way to diagnose CTE without an autopsy. Not being able to give a victim a diagnosis while they are still alive limits our ways to help others struggling with symptoms. So, in what ways might we need to advance in research? Since the brain has to be physically observed and researched in order to give a diagnosis, it seems impossible that we could ever give a living person a diagnosis of CTE-- a person can't still be living after their brain is cut apart. So in order to help the living potential victims, how do we help? Is it possible to make an assumption of CTE and treat from there? Still, there's no way to treat CTE itself, it has to be worked around by treatments for depression, anxiety, etc. Even then, we don't have enough research and medication options that every person with a mental disorder has an actively working medication, so how would we know which ones can/can't work for CTE symptoms?. It seems like the only option is to advance in medication, not only for CTE, but for every mental illness.