An association has been found in living patients exposed to repetitive head impacts and difficulties with cognitive functioning and depression years or decades later. The findings, published in the journal Neurology, reveal that participants with a history of both repetitive head impacts and TBI reported greater depression symptoms than those who did not have such history.
There was a dose-response-like pattern between head trauma and depression symptoms. Specifically, participants without any history of either TBI or repetitive head impacts had the fewest symptoms. While depression symptoms increased when a history of TBI alone was present, depression symptoms were highest for the groups who had a history of both repetitive head impacts and TBI. Indeed, the group that had a history of repetitive head impacts and TBI with loss of consciousness reported the most depressive symptoms. A similar cumulative effect was seen among those exposed to repetitive head impacts and TBI on tests of memory, learning, processing speed, and reaction time. Participants with a history of repetitive head impacts or TBI had worse performance on some of the tests compared to those without any head trauma history, and those with both a history of repetitive head impacts and TBI with loss of consciousness had worse performance on almost all of these computerized cognitive tests.
Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-impacts-later-life-depression-symptoms-worse.html