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Concussions over the past 30 years in the NFL
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Mike Webster was a football player who played in the National Football League for 16 years with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs.When he died at age 50, Steelers’ management said it was due to a heart attack. However, he was the first former NFL player to be diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is a disease that presents similar to Alzheimer’s, but can only be diagnosed after autopsy. After he passed away, an autopsy was performed and he was found to have CTE. This is where “Concussion” starts. During Mike Webster’s autopsy, Bennet Omalu (pathologist) finds deterioration in the brain that is similar to the deterioration found in brains with Alzheimer's disease. Omalu publishes his findings in a medical journal, and quickly gets on the bad side of the NFL. As other athletes receive the same diagnosis, Omalu tries to raise awareness about the trauma. …show more content…
Smith has been nominated for numerous awards and starred in “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (1990-96),”Men in Black” (1997), and “The Pursuit of Happyness” (2006). Alec Baldwin also stars in the film as Dr. Julian Bailes. Baldwin has been in “Pearl Harbor” (2001), “The Cooler” (2003), and “30 Rock” (2006-13), as well as having hosted several Saturday Night Live episodes. Fun fact: Baldwin also narrated 73 episodes of “Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends”! “Concussion” was written by Peter Landesman, who has also directed “Parkland” (2013) and written “Kill the Messenger” (2014). Previously, he has been a painter and novelist, as well as an accomplished journalist. Despite coming from a diverse background and being relatively new to film, Landesman wrote a moving story that shines a new light on safety regarding the NFL and if nothing more, “Concussion just may bring awareness to a truly terrible, yet barely known
Mr. Webster would even ask to be tased because he could not fall asleep. Eventually, Mr. Webster became homeless and medications did not help him function. In the year 2000, Mike Webster issued a lawsuit to the NFL stating that football caused his head trauma, dementia, brain damage, and cognitive issues. During this lawsuit, the NFL denied all allegations and in 2002, Mike Webster died.
A big part of the NFL’s hold on players is their contracts and money. Thousands of young men aspire to be on a professional team, just for the fame, money and title. They are not made aware of the lasting conditions that come with playing football and their everlasting effects. If anything, the NFL has gone out of their way to discredit the newer research that links playing football with CTE. CTE stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is a disease that has the same effects as dementia and Alzheimer’s, except that CTE leaves tau protein deposition in distinctive areas of the brain, which is what separates CTE from dementia and Alzheimer’s....
Thiel, Art. “NFL’s Plight on Brain Injuries Not Over.” Al Jazeera America. N.p., n.d. Web. 10
Smith, Rodney(2013).. Thomas Jefferson Law Review, Vol.35(2), 127-191 Solving the Concussion Problem and Saving Professional Football
Football is a very violent sport. There is a lot of concern over the risks posed by hits that injure the head and potentially the brain. The players say they have suffered one or more brain injuries. They want the NFL and helmet maker, Riddell, to set up and pay for medical monitoring and treatment programs for all former, current and future NFL players. Liberals are big supporters of the respect for human dignity. In that case, the NFL tentatively agreed to pay $765 million to past players with health problems that can be caused by concussions. Although research and progress within the scientific and medical communities is understandably slow, the same could be said about the NFL's response to concussions and the dangers they pose to new research reveals new findings. However, some liberals believe that it has taken to long for the NFL to respond to the perceived crisis and its attempt to regulate the concussion treatments which could eventually lead to players ...
“Football’s Endgame: What would happen if America’s Pastime just...died” is the title that had heads turning when it made its way onto Sports Illustrated. Football is the United State’s favorite sport so an article like this one was sure to shock fans. The article was written to be set ten years from now when the game of football met its death. Giving the ongoing issues surrounding the game in 2016, the author Austin Murphy dated the article September 7,2036. In this article Murphy talks about the factors that led to the end of one of the U.S’s beloved sports. Factors like the AIG not protecting athletes against head injuries in the NFL, Pop Warner settling a death with the family of a former football player who committed suicide at the age of 25 from CTE caused by hits to the head, and the 10% rise in football concussions. A woman whose son had passed away from a motorcycle accident noticed changes in her boy. Playing football for almost a decade he was bound to get hurt, but it was after his death that doctors found he had CTE. CTE is a topic of discussion in this article. Sports Illustrated works to inform everyone about CTE and its effects on the mind. This disease targets the way a person thinks and changes their moods, “He had all these [football-related] problems with his knees and back, but his brain was
In recent years, there has been an increase in research investigating the long-term effects of repeated head trauma on the brain, especially in athletes. Following his discovery of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), Dr. Bennet Omalu inspired a movement of research aimed at establishing better safety standards and protocols in football. It was not until 2002 that the initial connection between repetitive head trauma, such as concussions, and brain injury was suspected (Ott, 2015).
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease attributed to single, sporadic, or repetitive brain trauma, including concussions and subconcussive hits (Baugh et al., 2012; Wortzel et al., 2013). This disease was originally referred to as dementia pugilistica, and nicknamed “punch drunk,” because individuals suffering from this disorder would present symptoms that were similar to someone’s mannerisms while being intoxicated (Wortzel et al., 2013). This “drunken” behavior is thought to be attributed to the cognitive, mood, and behavioral alterations as a result of the repetitive hits to the brain over an extended period of time. Because individuals suffering from this disease are often exposed to conditions that allow them to sustain blows to the head multiple times, the populations most often examined in these studies are athletes (football, boxing, rugby) and/or individuals in the military (McKee et al., 2009). Individuals can be symptom free for several years (Baugh et al., 2012). The onset of symptoms are sometimes seen about eight to ten years after an individual retires from their sport, which roughly equates to someone aged thirty to fifty yeas old (Baugh et al., 2012; Wortzel et al., 2013; Karantzoulis and Randolph, 2013). As with all diseases, symptoms can range from mild to severe. Researchers have found a positive correlation between the number of brain injuries sustained during a length of time playing a sport and the severity of symptoms (McKee et al., 2009).
...Down and Inches: Concussions and Footballs Make or Break Moment. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publishing Group, 2013. Print.
After neuropathologist Ann McKee told reporters in 2009 that the brain of a dead 45 year old ex NFL player named Tom McHale looked like that of a 72 year-old former boxer adding, Mckee told reporters that “I have never seen this disease in the general population, only in these athletes” (Gordon, 2013, ¶6). She later received a call from Ira Casson, co-chair of the MTBI committee, who wanted her to travel to the league's New York City offices to present her work. The meeting felt very antagonistic to many of the individuals who filled the room reports
USA Today 26 May 2011, Virginia ed. : 1 C. Print. The. The "Concussions" - "The 'Concussions'" WebMD.com - WebMD.com - WebMD.com - WebMD.com - WebMD.com - WebMD.com - WebMD.com - WebMD.com - WebMD, 23 July 2010. Web.
Nowinski, Christopher, and Jesse Ventura. Head Games: Football's Concussion Crisis from the NFL to Youth Leagues. East Bridgewater, MA: Drummond Pub. Group, 2007. Print.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy also known as CTE is a degenerative disease of the brain that is most common in athletes, military veterans and others who have experienced significant brain trauma. In athletes it is most common players who have played in the NFL. The disease cannot be diagnosed until the affected person has died and has had a postmortem neuropathological analysis. CTE was first discussed in 1928 by Dr. Harrison Martland, when he described boxers as having Punch Drunk Syndrome, a certain type of CTE [1]. It occurs due to repeated brain trauma over and extended period of time and symptoms of CTE can begin to occur any time from a few years after retirement to decades after a player has retired, although it could vary. Symptoms include, memory loss, impaired judgement, confusion, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, suicidal tendencies, Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Many players have succumbed to these symptoms, more specifically suicidal tendencies, as many players who have donated their brains for research have committed suicide. On many occasions the NFL has denied that there is a link between American Football and CTE but on Monday 14th March 2016 the NFL’s top health and safety officer acknowledged that there is a link between football related
Wandlind, Michael W. and Oscar Guillamondegui. “Eliminating the Confusion Surrounding Concussions in Sports”. JAMA vol. 314 no. 13, 2015. 4 Mar 2017
Dr. Omalu usually talks to his patients’ body before he begins the autopsy, and this annoys his coworker. Dr. Omalu believes that his patients have a story and only they can assist him solve their case. Dr. Omalu was curious and his curiosity towards the death of late football start Mike Webster a football star, who was homeless and had lost his mental balance and died at the age of 50 without a cause, This leads him to use his personal finances to purchase the equipment for Mike Webster’s autopsy. Dr. Omalu later discovered the relationship between repeated concussions and the resultant damage to American football players’ brains. He termed this disorder as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is a neurodegenerative disease found in people who have suffered multiple head injuries. It is most common in those who participate in contact sports on a regular basis. Dr. Bennett Omalu discovers signs of early Alzheimer’s and dementia in many footballers, due to the repeated blows received from football injuries and frequent concussions to the brain. This disorder can only be observed in the brain after death. The NFL discovered that concussions had an