A FORMER rugby league player whose exploits on the pitch earned him legendary status is now feared to have a form of dementia.
Wally Lewis,63, a legend of the Australian game is now thought to be suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).
The condition, strongly associated with contact sports such as rugby and boxing, is fatal.
Now it has emerged that Wally, whose playing career spanned three decades, was tested after his partner noticed something was wrong.
Girlfriend Linda Adams told Australian TV show 60 Minutes: “I remember, Wally would pick me up and talk to me about something as we’re driving along
“About three minutes later he would say ‘Ah!’ as if he had never told me and then would tell me the same story.”
Wally told the show that his doctor Rowena Mobb all-but confirmed the diagnosis after a routine memory test.
He said: “One of my first meetings with the doctor, she asked me to repeat simple things. I think it might have been five things and it might have been something like bus, dog, truck, camera, chair.
“She went to them two or three times, she asked me how I was feeling. A minute later she said what are the things I asked you to remember and I got two of them.”
Doctors are now near certain that Wally has the condition but CTE can only be officially diagnosed when the patient has died.
Lewis, who captained Queensland in 30 State of Origin games from 1980 to 1991, is regarded by many as one of Australia’s greatest ever players.
He later became a coach and then one of the country’s top television commentators. He was inducted into Australia’s Hall of Fame in October 2016.
CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, refers to a brain degeneration caused by frequent head traumas, per Mayo Clinic.
Other elements may play a role, including genetics, but exact factors are yet to be discovered, as reported by the Boston University CTE Center.
CTE is only diagnosed through an autopsy of the brain and is known to be a rather rare disease.
It is most commonly found in athletes, including football players and boxers.
Some symptoms of CTE include memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and progressive dementia.
These signs can begin to appear after years or even decades after the last brain trauma.
