Head Injuries In Sports Essay

Head Injuries in Sports

One of the most common injuries in sports today is head injuries. Some of the major sports that head injuries occur in are hockey, football, and MMA due to the body contact between two players. Concussions cannot be detected through a CT scan or x-rays.

Hockey

Because of the contact nature of the game and the speed at which the players play, the brain is vulnerable to injury. Injury can occur through direct contact to the head or face or by a whiplash effect. All concussions have a potential for serious and long-lasting symptoms and affects. Concussions lead to symptoms that can be physical such as having headaches or being dizzy, and it can be cognitive such as having problems remembering,

or it can be emotional such as feeling depressed. Unfortunately in hockey, the helmet does prevent concussions. It does, however, prevent localized head injuries. The prevention of head injuries in hockey can be helped by never checking someone to the head. Canadian hockey adopted a new penalty in 2002 that is enforced for any player who checks another player to the head. Another prevention is never hitting from behind.

MMA

Mixed martial arts fighters suffer more head injuries that any other sport.

The repeated head blows sustained by fighters during their matches has been a link to slower cognitive processing speeds and smaller volumes of certain brain parts. Fighters are not allowed to strike another fighters head or face with a straight up and down elbow, or hit the top or back of another fighters head and neck, but other head and neck hits are still allowed. Most of the head injuries suffered by the fighters have been done after the fighters have already been put out cold. Fighters are allowed to kick and punch, as well as use wrestling like techniques on the ground with their opponents. Half of the knockouts occurred because of blows to the mandible or lower jaw and roughly 2.6 head strikes occur after a knockout. MMA fighters get what is called “boxers dementia” after being hit in the head so many times. The symptom that fighters get after being hit in the head so many times is called post-concussion syndrome. The symptoms are eye strain, sensitivity to light and noise, and depression. Post-concussion syndrome goes away within three months, but it can last for more than a year. It is important that referees and fighters can recognize signs of a concussion. That is why part of the treatment in preventing a concussion is to take the fighter out at the first sign of injury to prevent a more severe

injury.

Conclusion

Concussions have been a very serious injury in contact sports for many years, yet sporting organizations have not seemed to be doing much about it. Many players have been suing these organizations because of the long term affects that it has been causing. Hopefully, there will be a major change in how concussions are handled, but as of right now it seems that sports organizations are primarily concerned with the players still being able to play, not what their injuries are.