Recurrent Head Trauma: A Trigger of the Alzheimer Cascade or the Cause of an Independent Pathologic Entity? - An Explicative Case of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Mimicking Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

Repeated traumatic brain injuries have a negative impact on brain integrity and cognition. It was hypothesized that they could trigger the AD amyloidogenic cascade or they could represent a peculiar clinical entity labelled as “chronic traumatic encephalopathy”, CTE. To contribute in the understanding of this controversy we describe the case of a boxer with early onset dementia, reporting biomarkers and neuropsychological assessment with the effort to differentiate the AD diagnosis and CTE. We discuss, for each element, it’s possible role with regard to the opposite diagnostic directions and we highlight, on the example of our probable CTE patient, the necessity of better defined diagnostic criteria for the chronic traumatic encephalopathy.