Concussions In Football
Concussions - what are they? How do they happen? Why is it so important to try and prevent them? Concussions are becoming a huge issue in today’s world of football due to the problems that come along with them. When a player suffers a concussion, their brain is brutally shaken and bounced off of the walls of the athlete’s skull. Many organizations, such as the NFL, have put millions of dollars into research and trying to make the game safer, but as of now, things have only gotten worse. Some believe the National Football League isn’t doing enough and others believe they’re doing too much. One thing is for sure: concussions are not a light matter and something needs to be done to help prevent medical issues. Many players, both amauetur and, professional are being sidelined by these traumatic head
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Since nobody really knew about Chronic Encephalopathy (CTE), everybody blamed concussions for players’ brain injuries. Chronic Traumatic encephalopathy is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of brain trauma. Many people blame CTE instead of concussions for brain injuries. This is true, but in order to be diagnosed with CTE you have to have multiple concussions or repeated blows to the head. Concussions are very serious and should not be taken lightly. When you suffer a concussion, your brain is in danger. When you suffer multiple concussions you are in even more danger of permanent damage. After a hard blow to the head, your brain bounces off the walls of your skull damaging your brain. Football should continue to be a physical sport but give the athletes a couple of plays off after receiving a hard hit. With that being said, I also believe players should retire after a certain amount of
The NFL is trying to prevent concussions because multiple concussions can really damage a player’s brain, which in the long run can give players some serious emotional and physical issues. Too many hits to the head can cause brain disease, as we have seen in some former NFL players, like Dave Duerson. I believe that the NFL needs to find better
CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) is a progressive, degenerative disease of the brain caused by repeated head injuries. CTE was first found in boxers and recent studies show that CTE is also found in football players. It causes a buildup of an abnormal protein called Tau. During the recent interview conducted by the New York Times, NFL members have denied having any relationship between the NFL and CTE. However, there is evidence pointing against them.
The book Concussion focuses on the dangers of concussions in football and exposes the NFL to its audience for neglecting what concussions were doing to their players. In the book Concussion the author Jeanne Marie Laskas uses Logos and Analogy to persuade NFL players, families, and fans that the NFL should be discredited for endangering NFL players and to spread awareness about the dangers of Football. In the Book Concussion Jeanne Laskas uses statistics in the book to spread awareness about the dangers of football. “ The G-Force for a football being knocked out is about 60-90 G’s to compare a fighter pilot will pass out at 5 or 6 G’s but that’s over a long period of time” (Laskas 164)
An NFL football player will endure somewhere between 900 to 1500 blows to their head over the course of a single season. With an immense amount of blows like this comes an immense amount of damage to a player’s brain. This extensive amount of brain damage has been decided, by Dr. Bennet Omalu, to result in chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Over the course of these discoveries and much controversy, the NFL has been targeted, denied all accusations, done very few things to lessen the risk of concussions in football, and the risks and number of concussions have steadily increased throughout the league’s
I. Introduction A. Attention Graber: For many people there is nothing better on a crisp cool Sunday afternoon, than sitting down and enjoying a good football game. The NFL, hosts usually the football games people watch. Recently, however the NFL has had a huge conflict on its hands regarding player health and safety, specifically regarding repeated head injury and concussions. Research indicates, the NFL has not done enough to protect its players from the damage of repeated head injury B. Ethos Statement:
What Can Concussions do to the Body? Over the previous decades, concussions have increasingly received attention in the world of sports. A concussion is a serious head injury that can happen to any player, and in just about any sport. Indeed, it has been happening to a countless number of athletes for centuries.
In “The NFL Dodges on Brain Injuries” Hruby talks about how truly a big deal these brain injuries are becoming and that “ninety-six-perfect of former NFL players show some type of brain damage most often linked with concussions” (Hruby, 2014). Although these players receiving hit after hit, whether the player is blocking an opposing player or the defensive player coming in for the big hit, players are inflicting high amounts of contact on one another, which is resulting in each and every play. In an interview conducted by ESPN with Wesley Woodyard a linebacker for the Tennessee Titans, he talked about the extreme amount of contact in the sport. He was quoted saying "Definitely with all the new information coming out about CTE it 's cause for concern for parents. We 're taking the right strides as far as keeping the game safe -- safety is definitely going to always be No. 1.
The term is also used loosely of the after effects such as confusion or temporary incapacity” (NFL Football Hits, Concussions, Injuries & a Lifetime of Pain). Most of the concussions that happen in the game come from a player performing head-to-head contact, or when a player experience whiplash from a hit and their head crashes into the grass playing surface. Because of the pace and intensity of the game, it is easy to make those collisions during the duration being played. Many organizations including the NFL are looking for ways to make the sport safer, and help with the long term health issues of the players.
In conclusion, concussion is a major issue in all levels of football. There are three key techniques to how we can diminish concussion incidents. First, we should teach each athlete the proper way of making a tackle. Secondly, we should teach athlete the correct way of playing football. Thirdly, there need to be analytic test to measure the athlete psychological abilities before and after any head injuries.
The answer is very simple your brain. You get a concussion when your brain and skull collapse against each other and messes up the inside of your brain. In football many of these injuries is usually caused by bad tackling. Now coaches are taking time to teach proper tackling and how athletes can tackle without putting their head at risk of concussions and making the game safer for the people and athletes. The contributing factors of this is society not taking time to figure a way to make it safer and the history of football trying to lower injuries by putting heavier equipment on the athletes and when you get tackled not only is a person on top of you but also all the equipment they are carrying.
A simple tap to the head can change someone’s life forever. Athletes like to slap each other’s helmets and shake another player’s head after a good play, what they do not know is that they could give that player a concussion. It is likely that every individual will receive a concussion at some point in their life. Research has been done to look at the effects that concussions have on the lives of professional athletes and now the focus has changed to the effects of concussions of children. The focus is beginning to turn away from how do we prevent concussions to what are the lasting impact of concussions.
It is not new news learning that concussions are a common occurrence throughout the sport of football. It just so happens that throughout the last two decades, former NFL players have or have threatened the NFL with lawsuits regarding their personal health, specifically brain injuries. Many experts and players also question if the latest technology used to prevent concussions from occurring are effective. Modern day CT scans can rule out bleeding in the brain, they however do not diagnose concussions. This causes many concussions to go unseen due to the lack of advancements in the use of CT equipment.
The NFL needs to follow the same concussion protocol as the lower levels of the sport. THe sport could be much safer and it should be much safer. Players deserve more protection and it should be much easier to play the sport without having any
Emerging histomorphologic phenotypes of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in American athletes. Neurosurgery 69: 173–183. doi: 10.1227/NEU.0b013e318212bc7b PMID: 21358359 McCrory P (2013) Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport: The 4th International Conference on Concussion in Sport Held in Zurich (November 2012). Br J Sports Med 47: 250–258. doi: 10.1136 bj sports-2013-092313 PMID: 23479479 McKee AC, Cantu RC, Nowinski CJ, Hedley-Whyte ET, Gavett BE, et al.
THE INCREASING NUMBER OF CONCUSSION IN ATHLETES ARE DETRIMENTAL TO THE FUTURE OF SPORTS In the recent years, concussions have become a common accident related to various types of sports around the globe. A concussion is a traumatic injury of the brain, they can also be as a result of a sudden blow on the body. Such a blow may cause the head to jerk back and forth in a rapid motion. This may cause a bounce or twist within the skull, which may over stretch the brain, cause cell damage and alter chemical functioning within the brain.