The Role Of Concussions In Professional Sports

Rewind to the NFL Wild Card Round earlier this year. The date was January 9th; The Pittsburgh Steelers were facing off against the Cincinnati Bengals in an intense conference matchup for the first playoff round. This game was special since both teams are in the AFC North conference, so both teams were playing with a chip on their shoulder. The game was a hard-fought battle that came right down to the end. On the last gasp drive made by the Steelers to try and win the game something extraordinary happened. Big Ben Roethlisberger drops back, throws the ball over the middle to star wide receiver Antonio Brown and goes right through his hands. As Antonio is coming down from his leap in the air Vontaze Burfict comes in late and makes head to head

C. Thesis Point 3: What steps the National Football league has taken to protect players long term health and safety

Recently 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. However, it is also important to note that a concussion can also take place outside of sports, meaning it can happen to anybody. For instance, there have been incidents where a person tripped while running, fell, and the impact of their head’s contact with the ground has caused a concussion. Or, in a car accident many front-seat passengers, or even the driver, have slammed their heads against the dashboard/steering wheel, also possibly resulting in a concussion.

Every person in the world loves football! Football has the highest rates of catastrophic head injuries (16).The long term health effects of high impact sport injures can be super dangerous.

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.

Imagine being the MVP of an all star sports team, then suffering a concussion from a very competitive game or tournament. No matter what sport an athlete plays or how skilled they are at it, there is always going to be a possibility of injury. Concussions are an injury with serious side effects and can permanently end any star's career. Today, many young athletes suffer from sport related concussions. An estimated 3.8 million recreational and athletic concussions occur annually in the United States, according to statistics in 2012 (Concussion and Sports). Concussions are high on the rise and make athletes very vulnerable and prone to them. Among male athletes, sports resulting in the most concussions include football, ice hockey, lacrosse, wrestling, and soccer. For female athletes, soccer, lacrosse, and basketball were recorded for the sports that resulted in the most concussions. Youth athletes who have suffered one concussion, onset greater chances of experiencing more.

Concussions are a scary reality of playing National Football League (NFL). Every year there are more and more players that are having season ending, or career ending injuries due to hits to the head. There have been many NFL players that have had serious issues due to concussions. Postmortem X-rays Hernandez suffered the worst case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) ever in a 27 year old, this likely affected his memory and control over his actions (“Aaron Hernandez’s”). While in prison Hernandez committed suicide using his bedsheets. Once a person dies, they can have an autopsy scan. Autopsy scans can take from sixty minutes to five hours (concussion [page 12]). This looks inside the brains of player’s which allows for scientists to detect black spots which are broken down tau protein (“Aaron Hernandez’s”). The images of Hernandez’s brain showed black spots. This happens due to the players head being smashed continuously (“Aaron Hernandez’s”). Despite the fact that Dr. Ann McKee could not confidently say that the CTE caused these violent behaviors, due to the rising number of cases of NFL it is clear that CTE is linked to these kinds of issues.

Many of the famous sports today are played with great enjoyment, however, contact injuries can always occur at any time. Many of these injuries are concussions. Couple of years back studies showed concussions were not a major subject to be dealt with, but until later this idea was proven wrong. A simple Concussion can change many things in your life even the way you act. Many have died due to multiple major concussions even famous athletes. Young high school athletes are starting their sports journey and face these same injuries and when it happens it should be dealt with very seriously.

"Now that I 'm getting older, I start thinking about it more. In 10 years, am I going to be one of those guys that 's suffering?" Denver Broncos defensive end Vonnie Holliday. Concussions, in the NFL, should be taken more seriously. It may cause depression, may lead to serious health issues, and it may cause domestic violence.

The project that I decided to research was concussions in sports, focusing on the National Football League. Though the NFL is famously known for being hammered with controversy surrounding concussions, they are trying to improve the health and safety measures to prevent them from happening, and to protect players. These measures are usually tagged with a term called “Concussion protocol”. This term has been thrown around for years by announcers, coaches, players, and probably the most by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The question I had was, was the concussion protocol actually being effective and reducing the amount of concussions in the NFL?

On Any Given Sunday injuries happen just as they do in any other sport that either has

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

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. However, it is also important to note that a concussion can also take place outside of sports, meaning it can happen to anybody. For instance, there have been incidents where a person tripped while running, fell, and the impact of their head’s contact with the ground caused a concussion. Or, in a car accident many front-seat passengers, or even the driver, have slammed their heads against the dashboard/steering wheel, also possibly resulting in a concussion. Concussions when treated can be healed in a timely manner. Unfortunately, throughout history, there has been a tendency for people to overlook a concussion as a serious injury, therefore, making it more problematic than it already is. In the times to come, there will certainly continue to be dangers for athletes in just about any sport, as they are unavoidable. However, focusing strictly

Ken Stabler and Earl Morrall, were latest of dozens of players to have found to have had a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head hits. Should sports leagues do more to prevent concussions and other sports injuries, yes they should. Less practices means less chances of injury. Head-to-head contact carries a greater risk of concussion in football than head-to-ground contact. There is risk in life. Less practices makes a less chance of injury and college football should lower the full contact practices down to two. “In an effort to reduce concussions and other injuries, the NCAA is recommending that college-football teams abandon two-a-day practices and scale back the number of full-contact days.”(pg 1 Futterman). If NCAA abandons

In 1994, after concussion injuries to start such as Steve Young and Troy Aikman, the NFL Commissioner at the time, Paul Tagliabue, established the Mild Traumatic Brian Injury Committee. The committee consisted of NFL team doctors whose aim to conduct comprehensive clinical and biomechanical research on mild traumatic brain injuries. Although the committee was originally established in 1994, it wasn’t until October of 2003, after Dr. Omalu’s findings, that the committee released its first scientific study. Furthermore, the MTBI committee concluded that concussions had no long-term health effects, which was contradictory to Dr. Omalu’s findings. This wouldn’t be the last time that the MTBI committee contradicted or discredited research conducted