Traumatic brain injuries sustained in the National Football League has risen steadily since the first game was played. The public, as well as players, have been inadequately informed of the severity of concussions resulting from severe head trauma. Players have been sent back into play with life threatening injuries that may be invisible immediately but detrimental when observed long term. The National Football League has covered the concussion issue due to the lack of publicly the sport receives when role players are out with a concussion or another injury. Concussions and traumatic brain related injuries have become a costly problem in the National Football League (NFL), and most instances are mistreated and covered up.
Since the start of the National Football League, head injuries resulting in long term illness and brain compilations have occurred. Millions of dollars of research have been done to ensure the sport is safe. The general public has turned a blind eye to the mental health during and after retirement from the NFL. Mistreated and pushed to the side concussions, if left untreated,
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Technically, a concussion is a short loss of normal brain functions in response to a sustained head injury. But people often use it to describe any minor injury to the head or brain area. Concussions are a common type of sports injury in the NFL. A player can also have one if a blow to the head or a hit to the head after a fall. Symptoms of a concussion may not start right away, which may start days or weeks after the injury had occurred. Symptoms may include headache or neck pain, also nausea, ringing in the ears, dizziness, and or tiredness. Players may feel dazed or not normal for several days or weeks after the injury. Doctors use neurologic exams and imaging test to diagnose a concussion. Most players recover fully after a concussion, but it can take some
Concussions are the number one injury caused when playing football at any level today, but yet people still decide to play the game. Concussions can leave a big impact on your life after football, even if you are a younger player in high school. An article from “Frontline Magazine” states that, “an estimated high school football player suffered 11.2 concussions for every 10,000 games and practices. Among college players, the concussion rate stood at 6.3 out of 10,000 games and practices.” Concussions are a bigger issue than people believe and something needs to be done to help protect the players of the game.
Once a professional athlete has experienced a severe concussion they are required to take a neuropsychological test. Neuropsychological tests are assessments of cognitive given to measure psychological brain-functioning skills to professional football athletes to determine if they are qualified to return to play for the season. Once a athlete has experienced at least one concussion, they are twice as likely to receive more. Brain trauma affect one in three football athletes. To be more specific receivers, quarterbacks, defensive backers, special teams and corners are the players who experience the most concussions.
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
The NFL and the Concussions Crisis For the past two decades, the world of contact sports, particularly American football, became controversial because of the increasing attention focused on the long-term consequences of concussions. This issue would enter a tug-of-war battle between business politics and scientific evidence. The scientific evidence on the long-term detrimental effects of concussions implies that football may be too dangerous for any individual. It is only logical that the National Football League (NFL) would protect the integrity of football and everything it encompasses.
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:
Concussions themselves are a controversial topic simply because of their destructive forces on the lives of everyone, ranging from people who tripped and fell a little too hard, to people who make a career of hitting other people as hard as they possibly can. There are many people opposed to the idea of football’s inherent violence, yet advocates of the sport claim that removing the factor of colliding would make a completely different sport that cannot even be called football, which itself has become so ingrained in American society that it practically owns a day of the week from Week One of preseason to the closing seconds of the Superbowl. The fact remains though that if football were to suddenly cease existing, many people would be jobless,
Concussions are also not limited to contact sports, they can occur in any sports. The actual injury of a concussion is not the issue of this crisis that is ongoing; the real issue at hand is the failure to manage them correctly. That is something that is very important to note because thousands of concussions go unaddressed every year, which can cause severe brain damage, especially on the professional level. The focus of this issue is in the NFL because of recent studies that have come out about the true dangers of concussions. The NFL is currently on the hot seat dealing with this issue due to the amount of retired players who
Brain Injury in Professional Football A reportable concussion had been described as change in brain function induced by trauma. It was demonstrated by: first, altered consciousness, including being amnesic, confused, or rendered insentient. Second, symptoms and signs usually accompanying post-concussion syndrome, such as, persistent headaches, impaired balance, syncope, cognitive dysfunction, hearing loss, blurred vision, drowsiness, lethargy, fatigue, memory disturbance, and difficulty in carrying out routine activities (Casson, Viano and Powell 471). The Concussion Legacy Foundation disclosed that CTE, a degenerative brain disease caused by brain trauma, had been diagnosed among football players from more than 100 college football programs (Concussion Legacy Foundation).
Carson Simpson Mrs. Gallos English 3 Honors 24 April 2017 Concussions in Football Although football is a very popular sport, changes need to be made. There is a lot of research and data showing head injuries in football and how they hurt the players. The NFL tries to just sweep these cases away because they know it would hurt the popularity and economical support of the sport. Head injuries and concussions are the most popular injuries in football because of the fact that they are one of the most dangerous injuries a player could have.
With the scientific advancements this world has made we are now able to discover things we weren’t previously able to discover, and one of those things happens to be concussions. Concussions didn’t used to be a huge deal because there wasn’t enough information known about them. Doctors are now able to more easily identify and concussion and know the severity of it. Concussions can happen in just about any sport,
This has caused new rules/ precautions to be made. “Blame the NFL for perpetuating some of our concussion misperceptions. Highly publicized lawsuits between the NFL and former football players have raised public awareness about concussions, but they’ve also confused us.” (outsideonline.com ) This occurred when “the disabling neurodegenerative disorder” was to blame for former football players: Mike Webster and Junior Seau deaths.
Head Injuries In American Football Since the beginning of American football, concussions have been a big problem with players in high school, college, and the National Football League. Concussions have led to the end of many players football careers and in some cases, their lives. People that are in college and the NFL continue, playing even though they are risking their lives just for a little fame. Today football players play the game to make money and just because of their love for the sport.
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.
Concussions in Sports In sports, concussions occur frequently across all age groups. From little leagues to high school sports to the professional leagues, concussions pose a high risk of long term Traumatic brain injuries. Because of the high rate of concussions in sports more attention should be paid to protocols and treatment to prevent traumatic brain injuries. High school athletes that partake in a sport that requires intense physical activity are the most vulnerable to concussion and need more time to recover. According to the Head Case “High school football accounts for 47 percent of all reported sports concussions, with 33 percent of concussions occurring during practice.”
A concussion can be defined as a mild traumatic brain injury caused by excessive impact to the head. The word concussion comes from the Latin word concutere, which means "to shake violently. " The injury is caused by the brain moving forcefully