Further examination showed the degenerative disease was the same as that suffered by boxers taking blows to the head.
"He didn't know he'd ever been a footballer," Astle's daughter Dawn told The Independent on Friday. "Everything football gave him, football took away."
His family started a Justice For Jeff campaign to prompt the football authorities to undertake research into the issue.
That campaign will now be superseded by the Foundation, which is being launched on 'Astle Day' on Saturday, when Albion play at home to Leicester City.
The team, who normally play in blue and white stripes, will wear the white shirts and shorts used when they won the 1968 FA Cup final, in which Astle scored the only goal.
He played more than 350 times for them between 1964 and 1973 and was in England's squad at the 1970 World Cup.
The Foundation hopes eventually to establish a care home for former sportsmen and women suffering from dementia.
(Reporting By Steve Tongue; editing by Toby Davis)
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