The neurodegenerative disease can only be diagnosed after death through an autopsy,and has been found in the brains of former sportspeople including AFL great Graham “Polly” Farmer,NRL figure Paul Green and AFLW playerHeather Anderson.
Australian Sports Brain Bank founding director Associate Professor Michael Buckland said this was the first time a medical college in Australia has officially outlined a position on the causal link between repeated head trauma and CTE. It follows a Senate inquiry thatrecommended the government play a stronger role in monitoring and regulating head trauma in sport.
“We’ve got more amateur CTE cases than professional[sportspeople] now,and we’ve had the youngest case of someone who was 20,” he said. “We have no idea how big the problem is. We haven’t yet touched the bottom.”
After former AFL player Shane Tuck died by suicide in 2020,Buckland examined his brain anddiscovered the most severe case he had seen since the launch of the brain bank in 2018.
His sister,Renee Tuck,said her 38-year-old brother’s brain had deteriorated to the point where he was hearing constant voices in his head that made every day a living hell.
“Shane was the biggest,strongest,mentally strong bloke that I’ve ever known,and he ended up killing himself because his brain was just toasted,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to ever have to go through that.”