This paper will go into detail about the mental and physical health effects of CTE and address what the NFL is doing to reduce concussions. CTE affects players not just mentally but also physically. One out of every three NFL players are affected by CTE and it is becoming a bigger issue everyday. CTE used to not be as common in football payers, but more in boxers, it was very common due to various amounts of headshots taken by the
Concussions On September 24, 2002 is when Bennet Omalu was getting ready to start an autopsy on the famous football player Mike Webster. Mike had died from blows to the head on the football field. But the Steelers claimed it was a heart attack. The blows to his head affected him most after he retired.
Mike Webster, a former NFL player, who played for the Steelers in the 1970s have started to experience head trauma and health complications. He began to struggle with his normal routine and family relationship, ending up homeless. From Frontline documentary film, “A League of Denial” explains how “he later died from a cardiac arrest on September 24, 2002, where Dr. Omalu examined the cause of his death.” How this happened may correlate to the football player's head-on collision of the brain resulting in what is known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is known as a neurodegenerative disease that affects the person’s cognitive function, altering their behavior.
According CNN’s article “NFL Concussion Fun Facts,” there have been 692 combined concussions diagnosed throughout the preseason and regular season in the NFL over the past 3 years. It may be evident by these numbers that the NFL has a major problem with players getting concussions, and over the years their concussion protocol has been questioned by former players and other people around the football community. Ken Belson stated in his article “Brain Trauma to Affect One in Three Players, N.F.L. Agrees,“ that a third of retired football players are subject to long term brain issues, these issues may include the disease known as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) which has been brought to light in a more recent time. CTE has effected a good
In the true story based movie and the documentary, the dangers of head injuries in football are laid out for the viewer. Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered the brain injury chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE; however, the NFL was in denial about the effects football had on the brain and had on causing CTE. I believe that the NFL’s denial to the accusations were detrimental to many football players and that serious consideration should be taken into the way football is played overall. When Dr. Omalu originally diagnosed CTE on Mike Webster and the NFL denied that football was the cause for his death and disease.
In football today, concussions are the number one leading injury in the National Football League. In the past 7 years alittle over 10 national football players have died due to concussions. The list of players getting concussions during the past couple of years have just increased more and more as time goes on. A reason why the NFL concussion protocols are so strict is because the NFL does not want to get sued for mistreatment of players and insufficient care. That could possibly cause permanent damage physically and mentally to players.
Some of the tests revealed damage to the amygdala which controls mood. Additionally the NFL players scored much lower on memory tests, and had worse verbal skills (Hedin, 2015) 5. Due to the recent number of suicides & violent crimes committed by former players, there is more of a need to research the correlation between the head injuries in the NFL and brain disease even more C. Thesis Point 3: What steps the National Football league has taken to protect players long term health and safety 1. With the scrutiny the NFL has come under, they have developed a new protocol for the diagnoses and treatment of players with concussions 2. Under the new protocol, any player who exhibits sings of a concussion, even the most remote sign, must come out of the game and be checked out by the medical staff, they may not return to the same game if they undergo tests for concussion.
Football is the most American of all of the sports we play. We have good memories of playing catch and watching games with our friends, however, there is a darker side to this all-American sport, the damage done to the brains of the players. While the NFL has attempted to make great strides in preventing further damage to players on the field suffering from concussions, the rates of concussions continue to rise. In 2014, 206 concussions were diagnosed, while in 2015, that number rose to 271 concussions. If these new regulations truly had an effect upon the safety of the players, we would instead see little growth, if not a decline, of diagnosed concussions.
Abstract With Football becoming the most popular sport in society today, injuries are bound to occur despite all the safety measures taken. As a result, Concussions are one of the most common injuries football players receive throughout their careers. This review of literature will take a look at symptoms of concussion’s, and their effect on retired NFL players later on in life. The research will show that players who receive concussions during their career will show signs of depression, Alzheimers disease, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), and even suicide in some cases. There are three stages of concussions such as mild, moderate, and severe all with the potential to affect overall cognitive abilities later on in life.
Concussion can usually be treated at a hospital or doctor's office right a way however some patients may have to stay overnight or in trauma cases there may be bleeding inside the skull. Concussion recover depends on many things such as age, where the blow to the head was,how hard the head was hit, and how healthy the person was before the hit. The concern with football players is the constant blows to the head that sometimes create concussion and multiple concussions with a person is showing long term effects such as difficulty with concentration and memory and sometimes physical coordination. A study of American high school and college players confirmed 94 catastrophic head injuries in a 13 year period, 71 percents of the high school cases had had a concussion in the same season with 39 percent playing with residual
As concussions occur more and more in the NFL and among teens, more research has been conducted. There has been research on teens that concussions had occurred in teen’s brains, to find out what type of hit teens gotten by football may of suffer from it. There are many concussions in the NFL and especially teens who play football that have suffered death and never to play the sport they love. Teens and athletes who love the sport football, have been suffered by concussions that had ruin their playing for the most of this moments but research has been conducted of ways to help out teens and NFL. To prevent concussions, coaches and parents have the right to support their athletes to mental support from doctors.
Concussions are a big fear in any sport from ice hockey to cheerleading. That is why sports players should get a regular check-up for concussions. One of the main problems are that deaths are occurring from unaware parents or trainers. A young man that played in maryland died at the prime of his life because of head trauma. The investigation states that the man had a four hour practice that included multiple helmet to helmet collisions.
Football concussions can lead to brain injuries or other serious health issues that can be fatal. Concussions can happen in many different ways, which all involve big hits to the head. Hard hits to a player's head can cause his or her brain to move in different ways which can cause brain bruising or bleeding. A hard hit to a player’s forehead causes the brain to accelerate in a back and forth motion that can make a player feel nauseous or unstable. If the hit is focussed in the left or right side of a player's forehead it can cause the brain to move in a twisting motion which will leave the player light headed and with a headache.
Athletes who have a prior concussion face greater risks of developing critical symptoms of concussions and that can lead to slow recovery (Agel and Harvey 319–323). On some instances, concussion can lead to permanent damage and can even become
The long-term side effects of these traumatic injuries have led spectators and doctors to speculate the dangers of head on collision in sports. Furthermore, concussions lead to TBI which leads to depression and problems with their functioning. Brain injuries have led to famous NFL players committing suicide and losing their families and
