TABLE 1.

Clinical Data on the Athletes With Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and Motor Neuron Disease

	Case 1	Case 2	Case 3
Age at death, years	66	49	67
Cause of death	Respiratory insufficiency	Respiratory insufficiency	Cardiac arrhythmia
Sports history
Sport played	Football	Football	Boxing
Total years played	27	16	10
Years as a professional	16	3	10
Age at retirement from sport, years	37	36	22
Concussion history
No. reported	>10	3–4	“Many”
Cervical spine injury history
No. reported	Multiple	0	0
Substance history
Alcohol abuse	0	0	+ in youth
Illicit drug use	0	0	0
Family history
ALS	0	0	Sibling with probable ALS
Dementia	0	Paternal grandmother with AD	0
Motor neuron symptoms
Age at onset, years	64	47	67
Initial motor symptoms	Weakness of neck flexion, finger extension	Right arm and hand weakness, hyperactive DTRs, diffuse fasciculations	Hypophonic speech, drooling, severe atrophy of shoulder girdles and arms, diffuse fasciculations
New symptoms 6 months after onset	Slurred spastic speech, decreased walking	Slow, slurred speech, swallowing difficulty, excessive emotionality, tongue weakness, slow gait, numerous falls, respiratory difficulty	Progressive muscular atrophy and speech impairment
Clinical diagnosis
	ALS	ALS	Atypical ALS with dementia
Cognitive and behavioral changes
Cognitive symptoms	Cognitive impairment	None	Dementia
Age at symptom onset, years	56	NA	64
Depression	0	++	0
Outbursts of anger or aggression, “short fuse”	0	+	+++
Apathy	+++	0	0

0, absent; +, mild; ++, moderate; +++, severe.

AD, Alzheimer disease; ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; DTR, deep tendon reflexes; NA, not applicable.