NPR Investigates: CTE, Desperate Patients, And The Hope For A Cure (Pt 2)

Consider This from NPR

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🗓️ 23 November 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

CTE — chronic traumatic encephalopathy — is a degenerative brain disease found in many former professional football and hockey players, for whom blows to the head have long been part of the job.

But those injuries also occur outside the world of pro sports. And as awareness of CTE has grown, so has a thriving market of dubious remedies marketed to everyday people who believe they are suffering from CTE — a disease that can't even be diagnosed until after death, through an autopsy of the brain.

In the second of two episodes, Sacha Pfeiffer of NPR's Investigative Team reports on some of those desperate patients and their hope for a cure.

In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Until about three years ago, TJ Abraham delivered babies for a living.
0:05.2	He was an OB-GYN for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, but he started to feel like
0:11.1	he was slipping at work, like forgetting little things, slowing down.
0:17.4	Surgery was taking me longer.
0:18.8	I felt like my hand eye coordination was off and I would get flustered because I didn't
0:22.2	know what was wrong.
0:23.4	Soon, TJ found himself looking up basic information on birth control and antibiotics.
0:29.7	If he'd known routinely by heart, at one point he began blanking out during important
0:35.2	conversations, including surgical consultations.
0:38.7	That happened a couple times, to the point where patients feel like, you know, Dr. Abraham,
0:42.0	are you okay?
0:43.0	Oh yeah, I'm fine.
0:44.4	Shake it off.
0:45.4	TJ could feel his personality shifting too.
0:49.0	He was quick to anger.
0:50.8	He started avoiding people.
0:53.2	Maybe it was the pressure of a newborn baby at home he thought.
0:56.7	Maybe he was just getting burnt out at work.
0:59.5	But then one day, in an operating room, this happened.
1:02.9	I was doing a hysterectomy.
1:04.5	I couldn't remember what to do to finish up the last couple of steps.
1:09.3	And so I made up some excuse, told the nurses I think I had to go to the bathroom.
	...

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