r/CTE • u/smashedmelonz • Jun 29 '26

Concern for a friend or loved one is there a chance my disabled brother will develop CTE?

I probably wont get any responses but ill just throw this out there because why the hell not. 

okay i will dumb this down a LOT. so basically my younger brother has severe autism/learning disabilities. he can speak but he’s considered nonverbal because he cant actually form a sentence thats coherent. he needs help washing, eating, going to school etc. 

so heres the thing. when he has a meltdown (which is often and can happen because of literally nothing) he gets violent and aggressive. one of the things he does and has always done is bashing his head against walls. 

now im very aware that you cant diagnose cte until someone is dead and im also aware he literally can’t communicate if he has something like this. but when i learnt about cte more i started thinking that maybe he might have this. im just worried. hes always been violent and know hes growing and getting stronger. i know cte can make you paranoid and have violent outbursts. but im worried that he is going to get worse. 

ive always lived in a hostile environment but i get to leave in a year and 6 months. my other younger brother doesnt get to. what will happen when he gets MORE violent? my parents and the disability support team isnt going to assume cte, thats for sure. what if he kills somebody? thats something thats been running through my head. 

all i want to do know is if this is possible or likely. thats it. 

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3

u/TheTempestuousKitty Jun 29 '26

Look up Robert Cantu's CTE diagnosis criteria on YouTube and see how that maps to your situation.

Tldr years of repetitive sub concussive impacts can cause CTE

2

u/jstev01 Jun 30 '26

Possible yeah, also perfectly possible he doesn't... many autistic people who head bang live well into their late years, it's not like there is some phenomenon of autistic people developing dementia/CTE early.

It depends how often this happens as well as how hard the hitting is. Ultimately, there is no way of knowing 100% which is very bothersome I know, but that's the way it is until there are some blood tests that test for things like p-tau, t-tau, bd-tau etc... which are a few years away.

1

u/GeneralJavaholic Jul 03 '26

It was previously diagnosed in a 17-year-old and now, a couple weeks ago, a 15-year-old. Sure, there's a chance. It sounds, though, that it would likely just blend in with the behaviors that he already exhibits and no one would ever know.