Dementia pugilistica

Traumatic Dementias. Traumatic brain injury can also result in dementia. This can result from a single massive head injury such as in a motorcycle accident or a gunshot wound. Repeated small head injuries can also cause dementia. The best example is dementia pugilistica, the dementia observed in professional boxers after many years and many prizefights. 

By definition, most patients who suffer a serious TBI present to an emergency room in the immediate aftermath of the traumatic event. However, patients may also be brought to medical attention days or even weeks after an apparently mild head injury when the symptoms are delayed or so subtle that they initially escaped detection. In some instances, patients may even visit a clinic unaware that their psychiatric symptoms are attributable to a remote head injury. One extreme example is so-called dementia pugilistica that occurs after years of repeated minor TBIs over the course of a boxer s career. 

Miscellaneous Vasculitis/inflammatory Sarcoidosis/porphyria Dementia pugilistica (recurrent head trauma) Parkinson s disease/Huntington s disease Pseudodementia of depression Diagnosis and treatment varies... 

Hof, P.R., Bouras, C., Buee, L., et al., 1992. Differential distribution of neurofibrillary tangles in the cerebral cortex of dementia pugilistica and Alzheimer s disease cases. Acta Neuropathol. 85, 23-30. 

Schmidt, M.L., Zhukareva, V, Newell, K.L., et al., 2001. Tau isoform profile and phosphorylation state in dementia pugilistica recapitulate Alzheimer s disease. Acta Neuropathol. 101,518-524. 

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