What you describe is the issue, yes NFL, NHL, and other contact sports have more occurrences of "head trauma" but with as little that is known about CTE it is impossible to say for sure if you have a higher chance at CTE vs a keyboard warrior vs career football player. I see things batted around continuous trauma. Define trauma, if i hit my head everyday on the headboard of my bed is that continuous trauma? IF I have 3-4 really big hits to the head a year is that enough or am I pretty much safe. Or what if I have "a soft" head and get 3-4 concussions a year. As with all things medical there will never really be a solid incontrovertible scale since everyone's body and overall health and genetics are different. Now I think they could get better data points but it will cost money and a lot of dead people to get that information. Once a solid pattern and common areas to look and you have a living reference to compare a dead reference will they be able to piece together markers that show alive and dead with current imaging technology.
I don’t think you needed to bring up “keyboard warrior.” If all you do is work on a computer at home, you’re probably safe. I’m talking about extreme sports and other activities beyond the 45 professional sports where concussions are common. I was referencing real experience, if you want to call us weekend warriors, fine, but there are plenty of sports with hard falls, which is why helmets are a must.
Whether it’s motocross, professional bike riding, flipping on bikes or skateboards, or even wakeboarding behind a boat at 75 feet going close to 23 miles an hour, the inertia alone makes crashes brutal enough to make you quit, unless you’re a weekend warrior or just really into these kinds of sports.
I’m wondering if it’s more about direct head impacts or the jostling around, like if someone traveled the world each year visiting every amusement park and riding the most extreme roller coasters with all those sudden starts, stops, and violent movements. I’m curious whether it’s just concussions that cause it or if there’s something deeper going on. Kind of like shaken baby syndrome—though I know it’s different, where severe shaking can be fatal.
It makes me think CTE could come from more than just playing football and getting concussions, maybe from any collisions or rapid deceleration where the brain gets shaken inside the skull.
I'm just saying I'm 56 years old and been playing some kind of sports most of my life, yes at my age I'm still doing flips and taking hard falls Whether you want to try to validate what I do or not I'd like you to come try other LOL
But I'm not sure I feel any effects of any abnormal feelings of depression or with each other whatever the side effects you get that might be telling signs I don't feel like that at my age I have it but you never know.