Concussions in Football

Football is one of the most beloved sports in the United States. It is one of the most violent bone crushing sports, leaving players permanently injured for life in some cases. The most common injury that football players suffer from pee-wee through the NFL is the concussion. A concussion is a traumatic brain injury that changes the way your brain works. The effects of a concussion are usually temporary and can result in a full recovery if its minor and treated correctly. A concussion can lead to brain problems later in life, even after a player has finished playing football. This is why people are studying and trying to understand concussions fully in order to prevent and treat future ones. Concussions are very

Attention for traumatic brain injury has grown over the years and programs have been created to help try and prevent the injuries. As this is an injury to the brain the literature is vast with insight into what part of the brain injured resulted in what change in the individual. Children and athletics have been the main focus in recent years for studies as research have shown that undiagnosed injuries can have long lasting effects.

Concussions occur on a large scale in football. During a concussion, the head can experience a blow directly or can have whiplash. When the head is hit, the brain hits the inside of the skull, giving it a temporary bruise. This bruise or tearing of the brain can lead to mental impairments that can affect a person’s emotional state of being, physical problems like deteriorated mobility and sensitivity to light and sound. Doctors are quick to point out one of the major reasons that youth receive concussions, saying, “... children have big heads relative to the rest of their bodies and weak necks… that elevates the risk of concussions,” (P6). Along with a lack of education and care for the protection of athletes, youth are already at a huge risk. When children wear their football helmets, they are saving themselves from many injuries that could have occurred without them, most especially protecting the brain. But, in many cases, this is not enough.

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) have always been a problem in sports and especially in contact sports like football. Since the beginning of football there has been different styles of head protection, from no helmets at all in very early stages to the modern day helmets we have today. In order to know how the evolution of the football helmet has made head injuries less common than they originally were, we have to know what is a concussion and how someone gets one.

Throughout the basis of this position paper, I will be debating on the controversy of concussions present in the National Football League (NFL) and the sport of football in general. Currently in the National Football League, concussions are looked at as a dangerous aspect but most definitely a recoverable feature. Concussions are an

Today, thousands of athletes across the country suffer from this common injury. This injury is an illness that is one with several serious side effects and can permanently end any star's career. Could you imagine being at the top of your game and then suffer a career shattering injury, many athletes face it every day. Today, concussions are a constant threat across the world of every sport. Primarily in football and hockey are two major sports with a level of play that causes an increase in concussions. Medical experts and leagues are doing the best they can to understand this growing problem. By comprehending the role concussions can play in the game of professional hockey, the league can help

Do you keep yourself up to date with the news, ESPN, or the National Football League? If so, then you have probably heard of the many problems of the long-term effects of football-related concussions. Even kids in high school who have suffered multiple concussions are immediately put at risk for death related cause of such a severe head injury. As committees create and change the rules to protect players from such a traumatic brain injury, it is up to coaches and officials to enforce these rules to protect players. According to the Mayo Clinic Staff, a concussion is defined as a traumatic brain injury that alters the way your brain functions. There are many different ways to receive a concussion, but

Concussions are not always easy to define because they can vary in so many ways and because it is rare for any two concussions to be the exact same. Because of the inconsistency and irregularity, athletes are often allowed back into play before it is known if they have a concussion or how severe it is. In “Causes and Consequences of Sports Concussion,” Edwards and Bodle state, “The Consensus Statement of the Third International Congress on Concussion in Sport…defined concussion as a ‘complex pathophysiologic process affecting the brain, induced by traumatic biochemical forces’” (128). They also share that definitions of concussion differ between professional organizations, but share common characteristics: “trauma affecting the head or body resulting in transient neurologic deficits or symptoms” (Edwards and Bodle

In the article, “Sports and Brain Injury,” Michael McCrea, Lindsay Nelson and Julie Janecek report on the surprising prevalence and effects of sport-related concussions (SRCs). Concussions are among the most frequent injuries experienced by athletes participating in contact and collision sports (McCrea, Nelson and Janecek, 2014). Neurologists have increasingly studied the short and long-term effects of these brain injuries on athletes.

This falls mainly on the defensive player, the player that is delivering the hit. When playing football everything happens in a flash. You have only a few seconds to react to everything going on. The defensive of player goal is to prevent the other team from scoring at all means possible. If they can’t break up a pass before a receiver grabs the ball the only other option is delivering a blow to the receiver to stop him from gaining more yards. In the result of this he may launch himself at the receiver and make contact in the upper head area. In football this would be considered a defenseless receiver depending on the case but it is still hard when playing at full speed to determine this. This also takes away from the physical aspect of the game having to think where and how hard you can hit someone when running 16-20 miles per hour and weigh 200 or more pounds. Some players jump off the ground with over a thousand pounds of force meaning if they jump off the ground into another player it will cause some serious pain. This is just player playing and it’s kind of

The skull of human body holds the most valuable organ, the brain. This is the control center of the body. It is evident that injury to the brain is life threatening in many ways. One specific injury that is becoming more prevalent in the United States is concussions. Particularly concussions are becoming very prevalent in young children, teens, and professional athletes. A study in July of 2016 shared that roughly 1.1 to 1.9 million concussions occur annually in the U.S. to children who are 18 and younger (Bryan, Rowhani-Rahbar, Comstock, & Rivar, 2016, p.1). Concussions can lead to traumatic brain injuries (TBI), which can lead to mortality (HEADS UP, 2016). Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shared that over 138 people die from TBI on a daily basis in the U.S. (HEADS UP, 2016). Public health is bringing awareness all over the U.S. to advocate prevention of concussions and make athletic events safer. Programs are being implemented to educate parents, coaches, and young athletes in hopes of concussion reduction. Concussions affect over 1.1 million American people yearly; this subject should not be taken lightly.

In order to understand the origin of concussions, one must first understand how the head is affected by contact forces. When the head strikes or is struck by an object, both contact and inertial forces are applied to head (Meaney). These forces can cause injury to the brain both in close proximity to the impact zone or at more distant points. Focal forces are related to head injuries such as skull fractures and can cause stress waves that cause fractures at a distance from the impact zone where the skull has reduces structural properties. The primary cause of concussive injuries is large acceleration of the brain due to inertial forces. Due to how the head moves, the head undergoes both linear and rotational acceleration during impact. It has been found that linear accelerations correspond to increased pressure within the brain. This increased pressures causes neurologic dysfunction. The rotational acceleration component of impact is caused by rapid head rotations. These accelerations create shear forces in the brain . Further studies have shown that brain tissue deforms more severely in response to shear forces (Arash). Shear deformation caused by rotational acceleration is widely accepted as the primary mechanism in concussive injury.

Studies like the study at Virginia Tech can be used to identify the root cause of consussions and may in result, lead to a solution to the mass head trauma experienced by youth and even professional players. Because concussions occur so often in football, it is a suitable ground sero for the research on consussions in sports. It can lead to better medical diagnosis on the field where spli-second decisions are made and even in domestic cases. I addition, because concussions are a very misunderstood injury, this research is needed. The study wishes to develop a better helmet for football specifically but sports like hoccer could be benefitted too. The general knowledge of concussions would expand if more advanced and specific studies like these

Over the past several years, concussions and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) have become hot topics in the world of football. The long lasting effects of concussions and CTE experienced

Football can be a very dangerous sport. And although those who play the game believe that they are being protected by the helmets that they wear, the truth is that this may not be the case. In a recent study released by the American Academy of Neurology it has been found that “protection against concussion and complications of brain injury is especially important for young players, including elementary and middle school, high school and college athletes, whose still-developing brains are more susceptible to the lasting effects of trauma”(Science Daily, 2014). The study also found that standard football helmets worn by the majority of players on the field today, only reduce the risk of traumatic brain injury by 20 percent compared to not wearing a helmet at all (Science Daily, 2014).