• Jessie Jacob, South Carolina, was concussed—twice in one day—while playing high school water polo. o “At my high school, there was a stigma that surrounded people who got concussions about how they were weak or using it as an excuse to get out of things. I was a very academically-oriented person in high school who took AP classes and got straight A’s. After my injury, I could barely read and process information on my own, let alone get good grades. My school performance really suffered for about a year. That's the thing that really tore me apart inside because people thought I wasn't trying when in reality, things just got 1,000 times harder and I was drowning in my course work.”
• Elizabeth Klaffenbach, Westminster, sustained two concussions playing basketball during high school and college, respectively. o “In college, I felt pressured to return to play by my coach. So I
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Marsha Gabriel, Ph.D., Oklahoma, Senior Neuropsychologist at Cook Children’s Health Care System in Fort Worth, Texas, and Dr. Megan Adams Rieck, M.S., Ph.D., Iowa¬, Clinical Neuropsychologist at UnityPoint Health Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, answer The Key’s questions about the clinical side of concussions.
How does the medical community define a concussion?
Dr. Gabriel: A concussion results from impact to the skull or body causing acceleration/deceleration forces that produce biochemical changes in the brain. Symptoms include dizziness, nausea, vomiting, headache, irritability, vision changes, and decline in attention, memory, and speed of processing information.
If a person doesn't lose consciousness, could they still have a concussion?
Dr. Adams Rieck: It is possible to sustain a concussion without a loss of consciousness. In that case, it is common for a person to have an alteration in their consciousness often noticed as “seeing stars” and a loss of memory for the event.
Is a concussion always obvious right
At the beginning of my junior year of high school I got a concussion while playing soccer. I had to miss two weeks of school before the pediatrician I saw for the injury cleared me to go back to school. Coming back to school after the concussion and what followed was by far the hardest challenge I’ve had to overcome. It wasn’t making up the work from my absence or being back at school for the first time in two weeks that was challenging. The reason it was so incredibly difficult for me to come back to school was that when I returned I kept getting excruciatingly painful headaches.
A concussion is a tramatic brain injury that alters the way your brain function. Although the effects are usually temporary the effects can be delayed for hours or days and can last days to months. The effects include: headaches, and problems with concentration, memory loss, balance and coordination. Concussions are usually caused caused by a blow to the head or neck or upper part of the body. The cause of a concussion can be from a contact sport, a car accident, or even a kid falling on a playground.
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 today’s world, we are more conscious of concussions and their symptoms. Parents are given a form about concussions with the symptoms and required to sign it before their child can play sports. Some common causes of a concussion are car accidents, sports injury, or being shaken. Football is the most common sport for concussions to occur not just youth but also professional football. Recently a movie about concussions came out to highlight the injury.
Concussions in sports have been on a rise more than ever, not only just in football but also in other sports such as kids’ soccer and ice hockey. There are major outcomes that can occur with concussions, as in C.T.E. (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). This condition occurs when a player is hit, gets a concussion and part of the brain vessels block off with dead brain vessels. This has caused multiple deaths in many athletes like Mike Webster, a former Pittsburgh Steeler, who lived in his truck while going insane. He would taser himself just to go to sleep because of concussions in his former football career.
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.
A concussion usually comes from a blow to the head that rattles the brain and causes it to swell. “High school and even some college programs lack the resources necessary to protect their players from concussion”(Football).
Concussions can result in effects such as headaches, change in sleep patterns, dizziness, nausea, blurred vision, loss of consciousness, depression, mood swings, memory less, loss of concentration, and slow reaction time. This can last a few hours to a few weeks and may appear immediately after the blow/ trauma leading to the concussion or may appear after a few days or weeks (Virginia Board of Education Guidelines for Policies on Concussions in Student Athletes). These symptoms, of course, do not get any better when one has been re-concussed. Symptoms could get even worse, and even fatal, when the chances of getting a second concussion are heightened following the
Concussion? Ever got one? It hurts to get a concussion… a lot. I did have one experience, I mean the first experience getting a concussion. I got only one concussion… so far.
A concussion is a serious brain injury from a physically traumatic event. It is caused by either a physical blow to the head or being forcefully shaken. Either of these situations cause the brain to hit the inside of the skull. The most common symptom of a concussion is a very bad headache. But a person will also feel confused and dizzy.
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
Koppelman, a writer at Harvard is arguing that with many athletes playing contact sports there is no widespread epidemic of brain traumas (Koppelman). But NBC found that 2,500 concussions had occurred in grade school sports in North Texas alone (House). Also concussions just aren’t in football they have also been linked to basketball, wrestling, and soccer (House). Recently researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have been looking at how concussions affect brains that are still developing. They’ll follow several hundred people who’ve suffered head injuries (House).
This alarming percentage shows the more attention is required to keeping young athletes safe during game and in practice. By understanding the role of concussions can play in high school sports, the coaches and the athletes can take the right the steps to help prevent these problems from happening.
More now than ever athletes are being watched out for when there is trauma to the brain. After multiple cases of poor treatment to concussions parents and doctors are cracking down on letting concussions not be a big deal. As more studies advance, it is discovered that every case is different. The range is created by severity, past experience with trauma, and how the patient heals. Concussions in sports can range in severity, and how they affect each individual over time depending on times of impact.
However, in some cases, symptoms can last for short periods or long periods either days or weeks. The common symptoms of a concussion are the imbalance, confusion, headache, memory loss, loss of consciousness, vision change, hearing change, mood change, fatigue, and malaise. For about 9 to 10 people with concussions, symptoms disappear within 7 to 10 days. The most common causes of concussions in sports is football, rugby, hockey, and basketball. Loss of consciousness is thought to occur in less than 10% of head injuries.