In Mark Wada-Fainaru and Steve Fainaru’s League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth a very interesting yet disturbing conversation was stated as follows, “Have you been in a car accident? The doctor asked Webster. Have you been hit lately? And how often?. Oh, probably about 25,000 times or so,” Webster responded. (64). The above conversation did not happen between a doctor and a regular patient who had been in a car accident. Rather this was a conversation between the retired professional football player Michael Webster of the Pittsburg Steelers and his doctor. The hits the doctor and the patient were referring to were injuries and concussions to the head suffered by Webster. American football is the most popular game …show more content…
It is a very physical game where there is a lot of violence in grabbing the ball and scoring. There is a lot of pushing and shoving, head butts and one on one collision to put the opponent down. The result of all the physicality in the game is the numerous injuries and concussions the players suffer. Although a player suffers a lot of injuries like broken bones, torn ligaments and bloody ears and nose, the worst of the injuries is the concussion due to repeated blows to the head and the body. The Consensus Statement of the Third International Congress on Concussion in Sport in November 2008 defined concussion as a “complex pathophysiologic process affecting the brain, induced by traumatic biochemical forces.”(Edwards and Bodle 128). Concussions not only happen when there is a blunt force trauma to the head, but also when other parts of the body are under severe stress, and this is transmitted to the brain. Concussions have three reaction stages- short term, mid-term and long term. Depending on the person, each stage can be fatal. Some may show brain damage immediately after a concussion while in some players it may take a few years for the symptoms to show. One important reason as to why sports related concussions are quite dangerous for the players is that they are seldom being reported. A lot of players brush it away as part of the game or …show more content…
Children and adolescents who play the game are also equally susceptible to head injuries, and it affects them in similar ways as it would affect an adult professional player. Baillargeon conducted a study on 96 athletes, 32 were between the age group 9 and 12; 34 were between 13 and 16 and 30 were adults. This study was conducted to determine whether age differences exist with respect to neuropsychological and electrophysiological functioning following a sport concussion (Baillargeon 211). The results provide evidence that sport concussion may specifically affect working memory processes as revealed by lower amplitude of the P3b component, a marker of working memory updating, in all age groups. Moreover, adolescents seem more susceptible to display working memory impairments following sport concussion as both their neuropsychological and electrophysiological results suggest deficits in this particular cognitive domain. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that sport concussion is more likely disrupt frontal lobe functions (Baillargeon 219).The findings suggest that the adolescents are more vulnerable than children and adults to the deleterious effects of sport concussion (Baillargeon 218). These findings were useful as this was an age group that was being ignored previously. Concussions in children and high school kids were not given much importance as
Injuries are a huge part in professional sports. When playing a professional sport athletes do not always take into consideration that their bodies are vulnerable to injuries. One of the leading injuries that can end athlete’s career is concussion. According Kia Boriboon author of the article “Concussion Management In Football: Don 't Shake It Off” concussion occurs when the brain repeatedly collides with the skull. Concussions are serious and cannot be taken lightly they are detrimental to a person’s athletic career as well as life. Players who have suffered from a concussion or like symptoms of a concussion are at risk and should not continue playing their sport until cleared by a medical doctor, who is an expert in concussions. If concussions are not treated with the appropriate medical care, it can cause physical and mental health problems for athletes well after their professional career have ended. In
Moser, R. S., Schatz, P., & Jordan, B. D. (2005). Prolonged effects of concussion in high school athletes. Neurosurgery, 57(2), 300-306.
The article titled “Concussions increasingly common on the football field,” was found on the Alabama News website. This article takes a look from the coaches perspective when he finds that four of his players have suffered from concussions on his high school football team. The coach from the Greenville high school football team Josh McLendon, raises concern about football and practicing the sport. He talks about his players injuries and how most of the concussions occur during practice. Even though the team works hard to change practice routines and rules, they are not able to prevent concussions from happening. The article talks about symptoms that players do not notice. Often times a player will feel dizzy and he will just assume he took a hard fall, but players start to get blurry vision, dizziness, and headaches. Before players would hide their injury and play through it, but with the heavy effects concussions have had on retired football players, McLendon urges his team to speak up when they start to feel ill. He hopes that other coaches will learn from him when they stress the seriousness of concussions “Wouldn’t tell the coach, wouldn’t tell a parent, it would just kind of go away. But know since we have made people more aware of it I think they’re coming to the forefront of it a little more,” athletes who do not hear about the severity of something will not stop to think
Researchers and doctors had little information on the proper management and care of someone who sustained a concussion. There were 2,350 participants in this study, with each player being enrolled in any one of the Ivy League schools, University of Virginia, or University of Pittsburgh. Players who experienced a mild head injury during practice or a game were removed from the field to be examined and assessed for “cognitive and psychosocial dysfunction through the use of neuropsychological techniques and self-reported questionnaires up to four times after injury” (Barth, et al., 1989). In order for a player to be diagnosed with a mild head injury, he must have had either a head contact injury or a complete loss of consciousness that lasted under two minutes and displayed some sort of memory and/or attention deficient. The results of Barth’s study showed that there were 195 documented mild head injuries.
Throughout the years, many sports have evolved from that of their beginning. Be it through rule changes, advances in the way people watch the game, advances in how they play the game, but this biggest one of all is the change in equipment. This is most commonly seen and heard about in American football. Due to all of the advances in the medical field and seeing the sports injuries that occur. Football had to adapt and change to the new standards of safety for the players with new and improved equipment to lessen the chance of long term damage.
The number of concussions in professional and amateur football has been rising and has sparked much controversy in recent years. These concussions are most likely linked with disease and even the deaths of some pro and semi-pro football players. New research is attempting to solve the problem but the issue is still prevalent in football today.
Herring, Stanley A., and Kathleen R. Bell. "Youth Sports Concussions, An Issue of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics." Google Books. Ed. George H. Kraft, MD,MS. Elsevier Health Sciences., Nov. 2011. Web. 08 May 2014. .
How can a concussion be prevented? What is the minimum time an athlete needs to be out of the game after a concussion? What are the chances of an athlete suffering post-traumatic stress disorders after a blow to the head? In all sports athletes are prone to injuries, they can happen at any time and at any given moment. Nevertheless, people that have suffered from a head injury or concussion will also have problems dealing with their learning processes in the long run.
Scientific American 306.2 (2012): 66-71. Print. The. Brady, Erik. “Changing the Game on Youth Concussions.”
An unnoticed fatal injury that countless athletes have experienced is a concussion. Many people have heard about concussions, but not about the underlying damage they cause the brain. A concussion is a minor traumatic brain injury that may occur when the head hits an object, or a moving object strikes the head. It can affect how the brain works for a whi...
High impact sports such as hockey and football are extremely dangerous. People who suffer from concussions can be affected by brain damage. Concussions are often called an "invisible injury", this is because you can not see the injury on the outside of the body. Side effects from a concussion can include; headaches, change in sleep patterns, dizziness, nausea, blurred vision, loss of consciousness, depression, mood swings, memory loss, loss of concentration, and a slowed reaction time. (Virginia Board of Education Guidelines
Through sports or through everyday life, concussions tend to happen. An estimated 300 000 sport-related traumatic brain injuries, predominantly concussions, occur annually in the United States. Sports are second only to motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of traumatic brain injury among people aged 15 to 24 years. (U.S National Library of Medicine). Coaches and parents often do not go through the right procedures or protocols when dealing with a teenager who has received a blow to the head. The usual questions that are asked when there is a head injury are, “what day is it, what’s the score, and how many fingers am I holding up?” Now these are not poor questions, but these questions alone cannot determine if a person has suffered a concussion. The correct method, which they are now implementing in most professional sports leagues, is for anyone with a head injury to take a legitimate concussion test performed by the team doctor. (WebbMD) At present the symptoms can be hit or miss. After receiving a concussion, research shows that an “estimated 80 to 90% of concussions heal spontaneously in the first 7 to 10 days”. (Barton Straus) But, it is important to remember not to return until all symptoms are
Ice hockey is a fast-paced and full contact sport whether you are in a body checking league or not. However with a full contact sports, concussions are unfortunately inevitable. There are numerous factors that play into the number of concussions in ice hockey. Body checking and numerous head impact injuries that occur in hockey are a huge reason for concussions. Although administrators are taking steps towards concussion prevention and education, this education is proving to be ineffective. This paper will take a look at the various injury mechanisms that contribute to concussions and other head-impact injuries in ice hockey, as well as discussing concussion education.
Concussions and the effect they have on people ranging from the young to the old has become a very popular discussion in recent years. Generally people watch sports for entertainment and then there are those who engage in high impact sports from a very young age on. The people at home know how fun playing in a sport is, however they may not know the brutal consequences for some participating in that sport. Injuries to the brain are a main concern among those in the world of high impact sports. Football, soccer, wrestling, lacrosse, and rugby are among sports that athletes receive injuries in. The injuries vary from sprains, to fractures, to torn MCL or ACL, and bruised organs. Concussions are a severe type of injury endured by athletes in the sports world and this life changing injury is one that people are becoming more aware of.
Concussions happen rarely, but concussions are a brain injury resulting from a head trauma usually a blow to the head or a whiplash movement. In all sports concussions is the most common brain injury among athletes. The interrupt messages from the brain to the body. The injury also disrupts normal signals within the brain. That’s why injured players may have confusion, impaired vision, slurred speech, or trouble with balance and muscle control. To further our understanding of the relationship of heading, head injury, and cognitive deficits, we need to learn more about the actual impact of a ball on the head, verify the exposure to heading at all ages and competitive levels determine stable estimates of concussive injury rates across the soccer spectrum, conduct of soccer players udinal studies on soccer players focusing on exposure, injury and cognition and determine the minimum safe age to begin instruction in the skill of heading. While most of the new concussion research is distributing, non is more so than the research showing a link between athletes who sustain concussions. Soccer players are prone to traumatic brain injury, with 22 percent of all injuries being concussions. According to concussion expert Christopher nowinski, some of that athletic peer pressure is institutionalized.Injured athletes are forced to watch practice in full pads and helmets. The most common brain injury among