The Dangers Of Concussions In Football

Every year, more than 3.5 million children under the age 14 need treatment for sports injuries, with nearly half of all sports injuries for middle and high school students caused by overuse(Inetwork, 2017). This means that kids are being worked out to hard and play too much. Kids should not have to practice their sports everyday. 1.35 million kids a year get a serious injury from playing sports that are too competitive. It is getting to a point where the kids are not even having fun when they are playing sports, they are just playing it to win.

Thesis Statement Kids are literally just dying to play football. This project is intended to dissect the reason why children playing football can sustain a traumatic brain injury. Youth football can cause traumatic brain injuries. This exposes why football is damaging to kids. Methodology The first step I took toward researching my project was, choosing a topic.

This violence can lead to violence off of the football field. In recent years, football players have had the most domestic violence cases. Not only being around a violent atmosphere causes it. Concussions and other head injuries can lead to violent behavior. We do not need this in our world.

Just during the 2005-2006 season, high school football players received more than half a million injuries nationally (“How Dangerous”). One seemingly unexpected danger of high school football is something that falls completely on the decisions made by coaches and players. If a player comes off of the field injured, often times they don’t want to let their team and coaches down by having

Currently, in the United States, there are approximately 1.5 million young people participating in organized football leagues. These people are playing one of the most dangerous sports and have a high probability of becoming injured as a result of the game. To discover the chance of becoming injured directly from football a study occurred at 100 Texas high schools. This study tested only high school football players.

The era of Football in America is slowly coming to a close. Football has been known as America’s sport next to baseball for many years now. The general physicality of every play isn’t(B3) matched by any other sport on the planet, and that is why football causes more injuries than any other sport on the professional, and youth levels. Parents are pulling their kids from their teams, even in the middle of the season because of the information that has been released over the past decade illuminating a big problem for the game.

Brain trauma affects one out of three people in the national football league. In 2012 the stats of diagnosed concussions were 261, in 2013 they went down to 229, in 2014 concussions decreased to 206, in 2015 there were 275 diagnosed concussions and 2016 is decreased to 244. More concussions occur later on in the year. Half of the concussions are caused by contact with another helmet. Cornerbacks and receivers suffer more than other players.

Severe Injuries in High School Football Why are there more injuries in high school football than there are in higher levels football? Thousands, perhaps even millions, of high school football athletes have some sort of devastating injury every fall during football season. Injuries such as concussions and neck and back injuries are gruesome. Other ligamental injuries torn meniscus, torn MCL, LCL, or ACL leave players questionable and heart broken not knowing if they can play again. Broken necks, and other fractured bones including: Ankle, Clavicle, Femur, Fibula, Humerus, Pelvis, Radius, Spine, Tibia, etc.

About 7,500 hits that youth players experience, 8% are high magnitude (Robach). Think about this, 40 G’s is the hardest amount of force someone can take from a car crash and still be able to walk away with no sort of injuries (Robach), yet parents allow their 7 and 8 year olds to receive hits of 80 G’s, that is the same force college players are dealt with when playing (Scott and Don). Little kids are getting hit the same way and same force grown men are when they play football, this is a huge problem. The hits kids experience or have faced should be taken into account when parents decide if their child should step on a football field. People believe that the big hits that players are dealt with are part of the game, and without the booming hits the sport wouldn 't be the as entertaining to watch.

“An estimated 1.6-3.8 million sports- and recreation-related concussions occur in the United States each year, although the true figure is unknown because most concussions are not recognized and reported. Players in collision sports such as American football may experience many more subconcussive impacts throughout a season and career” (Stern 460). The people at risk for concussions and CTE range from amature athletes to professional athletes and even highly trained military personnel. The cause and effects of concussions and CTE are becoming more prevalent in all levels of athletics, however athletes themselves are still slow to acknowledge them and take themselves out of the game in order to allow their brain to heal. There are millions of athletes participating in contact sports as well as military troops who are at risk for repetitive brain trauma.

So how will extra periods of sports related injury breaks be beneficial? Today student-athletes may play a variety of sports. With football, hockey, and baseball all ringing in number one as concussion prone sports. According to "Heads up: Concussions in High School Sports" article, 5% of high school athletes are concussed each year when participating in collision prone sports. With just about 10% of athletes needed at least 7 days to recover from just the basic effects of an concussion this leaves other athletes to live with the effects for at least 30 years

Since the beginning of football, there has been too much head to head contact. According to Dr Weil (2016), “4,500 former professional football players filed a complaint of the consequences of concussion (long term effects).” These long term effects include such as Alzheimer 's, Parkinson 's, or severe cognitive impairment. About $870 million has been spent on National Football League(NFL) players for concussion related injuries. NFL players are literally being paid to play the game, but what they don 't think of is having to suffer the long term concussion effects.

There are estimated to be between 1.6 and 3.8 million sports related concussions in the United States every year (prevacious.com). Is there a way to stop this? Team doctors are responsible for the long term effects of concussions in football players. Most of the concussions are coming from football, the concussion rate is 64 to 76.8 and 33 percent of these injuries are happening in practiced and not in games (Headcasecpmpany.com). Most of these concussions are happening because they can 't defend themselves from the hard hits or the balls hitting them or just falling to the ground hard.

A study conducted by researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) at Columbus Children 's Hospital, is the first to compare injuries among high school and collegiate football players using a nationally representative sample. According to the study, published in the August issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine, four out of every 1,000 high school football exposures resulted in an injury, while eight out of every 1,000 collegiate football exposures resulted in an injury.

From 2010 to 2013 players in the NFL suffered 219 ACL tears. That is a very high number for only ACL tears. There is many other knee injuries that are possible to happen. People need to make sure they don’t go back to sports too early after the injury. The risk of reinjury is a lot higher if you return to early.