Heritage Catalog - Gehrig and ALS

[EddieP]

Here is the criteria to diagnose CTE in a living individual:

To be diagnosed with TES under these new criteria, an individual must have: substantial exposure to repetitive head impacts from contact sports, military service, or other causes (e.g., a minimum of five years of organized American football, with two or more of those years played at the high school level or beyond); and a progressive course of cognitive impairment (specifically in episodic or “short-term” memory and/or executive functioning, such as planning, organization, judgment, and multi-tasking) or neurobehavioral dysregulation (including explosiveness, impulsivity, rage, violent outbursts, and emotional lability) or both. Moreover, the criteria require that other neurologic, psychiatric, or medical conditions cannot be fully responsible for these clinical problems, although other neurologic and psychiatric conditions may be diagnosed together with TES.

Based on this Gehrig did NOT have CTE.

[packs]

Having Lou Gehrig's name attached to ALS has no doubt raised it's profile as a disease and I would think there is also little doubt that funding for the disease is helped by the association. I understand truth is truth but I don't think it would help ALS research or funding if it were no longer associated with Gehrig.