Concussion Case Study

Concussions Study Impacts on the brain can lead to serious health issues if not treated properly. Concussion study should be encouraged throughout hospitals and schools and other institutes due to the major injuries occurred in sports and other numerous activities.

A concussion is a traumatic brain injury caused by a blow to the head causing it to move rapidly back and forth. When a person is hit, the brain shifts or twists inside the skull causing a chemical change in the brain damaging the brain cells ("What Is a Concussion?" Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 31 Jan. 2017). CTE or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is a disease that mainly occurs in athletes, military veterans and others

In 1808, Franz Joseph Gall who was a German anatomist discovered that reading the configuration of bumps on the skull can determine a person's character, this is when the study of the brain started to broaden. In 1848, a man named Phinease Gage who was a North American railway worker suffered damage to the frontal lobe of the brain due to the piercing of a metal rod through the skull. Gage survived the accident but his mood and his daily life changed. Because of no treatment due to the lack of knowledge he was unable to work because of aggression (A short history of brain research – 1st Century to 1872). Because this was not the main concern, his behavior remained a

Injuries did occur and new rules were written in sports to try to improve safety but scientist still paid little attention to the occurrences until the 1900's (Harrison, Emily A. "The First Concussion Crisis: Head Injury and Evidence in Early American Football." American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, May 2014). The death of a student in 1906 from Harvard college sparked a new sense of reality to many players and doctors, many articles came out about the overwhelming death of the college student and studies were then in place, more for the people who questioned the sport and for the little curiosity of scientist. Concussions were not an important field of study in the beginning of brain research or Neuroscience. These head cases were something very unusual but yet not prevalent enough to go deeper into the main cause of the problem until 2002. A pathologist named Bennet Omalu presented the first real evidence of CTE present in an American Football player named Mike Webster. Webster died at 50 years of age but had looked much older, because he suffered from CTE. When Omalu looked at his brain he saw changes that were very unusual and should not be in his brain at his age. When Omalu wrote about his discovery, he was bashed by many NFL officials and scientist. Doctors assailed his research and retraction