Symposium

Brain Injury

Athlete Development & Sports Rehabilitation

Clinical Practice (assessment, diagnosis, treatment, knowledge translation/EBP, implementation science, program development)

Neurodegenerative Disease (e.g. MS, Parkinson's disease)

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy: New NINDS Consensus Diagnostic Criteria for Traumatic Encephalopathy Syndrome with LIVE VIDEO DISCUSSION (live discussion to begin at 11:40 AM ET) (819418)

Presenter(s)

• 

  Douglas I. Katz, MD

  Professor; Medical Director of Brain Injury
  Boston University; Braintree Rehab
  Newton Center, Massachusetts

  Presentation Slides

Panelist(s)

• 

  Ross Zafonte, DO

  Professor; Chair/Senior VP
  Harvard University; Spaulding Rehabilitation Network
  Boston, Massachusetts
• 

  Kristen Dams-O'Connor, PhD

  Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine and Neurology, Director of Brain Injury Research Center
  Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
  New York, New York

  Presentation Slides
• BJ

  Barry Jordan, MD, MPH

  Chief Medical Officer
  Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center
  Downey, California
• 

  Jennifer V. Wethe, PhD, ABPP-CN

  Assitant Professor of Psychology
  Mayo Clinic School of Medicine
  Scottsdale, Arizona

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease associated with exposure to repetitive head impacts, including participation in contact sports, can only be definitively diagnosed by postmortem neuropathologic examination. There are no validated antemortem diagnostic criteria for clinical CTE, sometimes termed, Traumatic Encephalopathy Syndrome (TES). In 2019, an NINDS Consensus Workgroup was convened to develop diagnostic criteria for TES. Evidence from all published CTE cases (229), and data from the largest CTE clinicopathological study (n=298) informed expert opinion and a modified Delphi procedure was used to obtain consensus. This symposium will present the consensus diagnostic criteria for TES followed by a panel discussion. Criteria are divided into sections: Causes/mechanisms; Core clinical features; Exclusions; Level of functional dependence/dementia. Criteria also include supportive features and proposed criteria for levels of certainty for underlying CTE pathology. The criteria will evolve to improve diagnostic specificity as more clinical and biomarker information becomes available.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the pathological and clinical features of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and previously proposed diagnostic criteria for clinical CTE or Traumatic Encephalopathy Syndrome (TES)
• Describe the published evidence and current unpublished research on the causes, mechanisms, cognitive, behavior, psychiatric and motor clinical features of CTE in pathologically confirmed cases.
• List the new NINDS consensus diagnostic criteria for TES (clinical CTE)
• Discuss the strengths, weaknesses and implications of the new Consensus Diagnostic Criteria for TES, and future goals for improving sensitivity and specificity with further research on clinical features and biomarkers.