What Is Boxer's Syndrome (Punch Drunk, Or Otherwise Known As Dementia Pugilistica) And How Is It Related To Alzheimer's Disease?

Question: What is Boxer's Syndrome (Punch Drunk, or otherwise known as Dementia Pugilistica) and how is it related to Alzheimer's Disease?

Answer: There's another mechanism by which head trauma is associated with dementia, of which Alzheimer's is simply the most common type in late-life, and that is by repeated blows to the head. There have been a lot of articles in the press about this regarding football players.

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It's been known for almost a hundred years that people who are boxers and who endure many, even head trauma frequently, including some professional football players. That actually isn't Alzheimer's disease itself, it's a different kind of change in the brain, it has actually one of the two things that characterize Alzheimer's disease: changes inside nerve cells that clearly interfere with our ability to speak to one another, and this is likely what causes the loss of thinking function as you get older.