Sports Concussions

Silas Woodman

Professor Hammett

English 1213

Project 1

November 5, 2023

Word count: 1,401

 

                                                 Sports Concussions

 

A young man lays on the field ears ringing and head throbbing he pulls himself up and walks towards the huddle. This dangerous situation is an epidemic in our country’s high schools and colleges. Sports concussions are commonplace across many sports. These concussions if not caught quickly can result in repeated head trauma. This repeated head trauma often causes lifelong issues.  There is a way to mitigate these concussions and make the sports that we all love safer for everyone involved.                                                                                                               Sports concussions have been an issue as long as contact sports have existed. They have often been under reported. As concussions are not a visible injury, such as a broken leg or dislocated shoulder, coaches and players alike often think there is nothing wrong with an injured player, and they just need to shake it off and play through the pain. This causes an extremely dangerous situation as repeated head trauma is shown to lead to an increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases such as impaired cognitive function, dementia, Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Pearce et al., 2015a). These terrible diseases are utterly life changing and completely devastating to the victims and their families. Another horrible repercussion of repeated mild head trauma is Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE. CTE has been known to worsen with age and results in deterioration of motor skills and behavioral deterioration (Pearce et al., 2015a). These symptoms of CTE were first noticed officially in 1928 when a New Jersey medical practitioner found that half of boxers displayed symptoms of this condition was referred to as “punch drunk” (Gavett et al., 2011). It wasn’t until 1966 that CTE was given its title.                                                                                                          The CDC now offers many safety tips and prevention measures for head trauma. For all sports, the focus is on rule enforcement and proper reporting. Rule enforcement is a critical part of preventing head injuries. Most contact sports today have solid rules in place that help protect players against concussions. These rules only help if they are enforced by qualified referees and coaches. It is critical that these referees receive training on the importance of enforcing rules protecting against head trauma. Proper reporting is one of the most difficult issues to address. It requires a change in mindset among players and coaches. In any sport most players are extremely focused on winning in many cases players will give this goal of winning more importance than their own health. This passion for the sport can become dangerous when a player receives head trauma and knows that they are injured but does not report it. The question becomes why not report this injury, why risk a second head trauma and severe long term health issues? The answer is different for every player. Perhaps they are afraid of letting down their teammates and coaches, afraid of looking weak, losing a scholarship, or dropping on the depth chart (CDC,2021). All these fears are irrational when compared to the serious dangers of not reporting. This is something that needs to be discussed with players more. The players should understand that no game is more important than their physical and mental health. These players should be forthcoming with their symptoms to training staff who are ready to help them through a proper recovery.                                                                                                                               According to a study conducted on the National Collegiate Athletic Association, determined that men’s ice hockey had second most concussions (Kerr et al., 2017). The CDC has solutions which they hope will mitigate this relatively large number of concussions. These include having “limited full contact practices, limiting body checking, making sure equipment is in good order and making sure the ice is clear of all tripping hazards”. (CDC,2021). These are great, but limiting body checking does take out a key aspect of the sport. Hockey is known for being a physical sport with frequent brawls between players. There lies a difficult question, is it more important to keep the violence in the sport or keep the players safe? This should be for the players to decide because they are the ones who risk their health for their team and their fans.       

Football is a very violent sport resulting in lots of concussions luckily there are solutions. The NCAA study found that men’s football was the sport with the highest number of concussions. This is unsurprising with football being an extremely competitive and high contact sport. Once again, the CDC has guidelines in place that hope to decrease the number of concussions. These guidelines include teaching proper techniques, limiting contact in practices, starting non-contact football leagues, as well as making sure equipment is in good shape and well fitting (CDC,2021).

 Proper tackling techniques are a great solution to the epidemic of sports concussions. The CDC stated that, “tackling is responsible for 63% of concussions in high school football” (CDC,2021). These injuries often happen when the defensive player has poor tackling form. Heads up tackling is something that has been preached in the sport. This is because when the head is up the defensive player cannot see where they are going to make contact in order to avoid the offensive player’s head. When the head is down, not only can the defensive player not see where he is making contact, but the crown of his head is also taking all the force of the impact rather than his shoulders. Another tackling technique that should be taught much more is the rugby style of tackling. This method the defensive player attempts to wrap up the hips of the offensive player and the rotate his own body to make the tackle. This rugby style of tackling removes the large impact from the tackling creating a much safer situation for both players involved. Aside from tackling, in football there is also a very large problem with underreporting head injuries especially in high school and college. This may be due to the size of the audiences attending these games. Players do not want to let down their team or the often thousands of fans in the stands, this creates a situation were playing through the pain is extremely common. This is an extremely difficult problem to solve and requires and change of culture. A great way to do this would be by having professional athletes interact with the youth about reporting concussions. Hearing from some of the greats in the sport may be enough to swing the culture of football to the side of safety.                                                                                                                          In conclusion, the only true solution to eliminate sports concussions would be to get rid of the sports in which concussions occur such as football and ice hockey. This would certainly not be received well by the millions of people who play and love these sports. Often when talking to a person who played a contact sport in their past, they will say that they did have concussions or other injuries. They will speak more about the great memories of comradery with teammates or the big plays they made. To many people, the injuries they suffered were well worth the memories. The best solution is one that keeps the great sports and the emotions they bring but limits the injuries. This is done by following the guidelines in place by the CDC and changing the culture where no player is afraid to say, “hey coach that was a pretty bad hit I need to come out”.

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                                           References Page

 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021, July 6). Brain Injury Safety Tips and prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/headsup/basics/concussion_prevention.html

Gavett, B. E., Stern, R. A., & McKee, A. C. (2011). Chronic Traumatic encephalopathy: a potential late effect of Sport-Related concussive and subconcussive head trauma. Clinics in Sports Medicine, 30(1), 179–188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csm.2010.09.007

Harrison, E. A. (2014). The first concussion crisis: head injury and evidence in early American football. American Journal of Public Health, 104(5), 822–833. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2013.301840

Kerr, Z. Y., Roos, K. G., Djoko, A., Dalton, S. L., Broglio, S. P., Marshall, S. W., & Dompier, T. P. (2017). Epidemiologic measures for quantifying the incidence of concussion in National Collegiate Athletic Association Sports. Journal of Athletic Training, 52(3), 167–174. https://doi.org/10.4085/1062-6050-51.6.05

Pearce, N., Gallo, V., & McElvenny, D. (2015b). Head trauma in sport and neurodegenerative disease: an issue whose time has come? Neurobiology of Aging, 36(3), 1383–1389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2014.12.024

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