A
rising epidemic in youth, high school, college, and professional sports is the
chance of a concussion. The chance of a concussion is always in the backs of
the minds of many people, because getting a concussion is a chance at future
brain damage and future problems that linger and can be painful and cause
psychological pain. Sports such as football have started to input safety
precautions into their games, such as no more intentional head to head contact
on defenseless players. When concussions occur in youth and adult the main
thing to do after wards is to just rest
physically and mentally. A concussion is an injury that is caused by head
trauma, causing the brain to shake or move quickly and possibly hit the walling
of the skull. Concussions can cause you to lose consciousness, but also
concussions can go without being noticed and you may never know you have one.
History
Concussions
go back in history in sports, work, and just everyday life. Concussions are
always a possibility in life when trauma occurs with the head. Any kind of blow
to the head is dangerous and can lead to issues in the near or distant future,
but concussions are something to always be careful about because they can lead
to serious brain damage if they keep occurring. Concussion regulations began in
the NCAA when the director was worried about the student athletes playing with
head injuries and putting into the effect that if you have symptoms for
forty-eight hours then you must be out of activity for 21 days, and can’t
compete again till the symptoms have been gone for forty-eight hours. A couple
years later the American Football Coaches Association had its annual meeting
and decided that concussed players should be immediately removed from the game.
Years later it was suggested that players who sustain three concussions or more
should leave football forever, but many football players will not listen to
this because this is the game they love and the game they live for and wont
stop just because they have been hit in the head a few times. Some players on
the professional level will try to receive help to get back to where they want
to be so they can compete in the sport again. This rule doesn’t only apply for
football, this applies for all sports as far as the time out and the
requirements to participate after sustaining a concussion. High school sports
began using the rules and becoming strict on them to protect the youth
athletes.
What
causes concussions in head trauma, the rapid acceleration and deceleration of
the brain, causing is to move and this can manipulate the growth and production
of the brain. This can cause the cells to become out of order and produce more
or less than necessary causing brain damage in the near future of the distant
future. Player in sports suffer head to head contact or just hard contact with
their head and this causes concussions with athletes. In the past players, have
been told to “Shake it off,” and this is being shown to be the worst thing to
do with the latest studies, this can cause future issues and be the cause to
many brain issues.
Effects
Concussions
have had many effects on society and will continue to cause effects on society
and the athletes of the world, and even the people who have suffered head
trauma in the past. The effects have mostly changed the way sports are played
and the caution taken in sports when there is a blow to the head or neck,
mainly football. The rules of football have changed to try and stop the
concussion threat, there is rule where you cannot have head to head contact
against a defenseless player or else there is a penalty against you. The
effects on college, high-school, and youth sports have also had a big impact.
The regulations on concussion protocol protects the athletes a little too much
sometimes, making the players less tough. Someone might just get their bell
rung a little and he has to sit out for two to three weeks till he has no
symptoms. The trainer decides when the symptoms are gone, not the athlete which
bothers some people and they believe the athlete should be allowed to compete
when they believe they are ready. People who sustain multiple concussions over
their life, or severe ones when put into society might have mental problems or
brain damage and won’t be able to function in society as they could before. The
effects that concussions have on parents now is they are afraid to enroll their
child in sports that help build the child character because they believe there
is a risk for them to get a concussion, which yes there is a risk, but it’s a
risk that you need to take to help the adulthood of the child.
Examples
Examples
of concussions happen all around us in the world of sports, playing baseball
personally, it’s a rare occurrence yet is still possible. Baseball players can
run into fences, hit in the head when batting, hit in the head while pitching
from a ball back at them, and collisions with other players. In basketball, it
can be caused by being elbowed, hitting the floor, or colliding with another
player. Basketball has very few possibilities. Football is where concussions
are the most common, due to the constant contact in football. There are many
opportunities for the players to suffer a blow to the head, from another
player’s head or just from the body of the other player. There have been rules
and penalties in place to try and prevent the head to head contact and
targeting, the penalty of targeting the head of a defenseless player has been
heavily watched in the NFL and college football and the penalty is a severe
one. I have witnessed people get concussions personally and it is not a pretty
sight, it is such a hard blow to the head. The strength needed to cause a
concussion also depends on the person.
There
are scientist and associations who are in charge of sports and health
departments that make the regulations and rules in sports and activities that
have the danger of concussions. These people are always working on ways to
prevent injuries and keep the players safe without taking away from the game
itself. The solutions won’t always be able to protect from all the
possibilities of getting a concussion but can stop the ones we can prevent,
like intentional head to head contact as an example. Hopefully these solutions
keep helping the athletes out there from suffering from concussions and any
other head injuries that could happen from trauma to the head.
Solutions
There are numerous practical solutions to solve the
concussion problem in sports, different opinions and different perspectives on
the issue. The different perspectives are based on toughness, how you were
raised, what sport is in question, your own physical condition and able to
suffer a concussion from a blow to the head, and if have a bias from a loved
one or someone you know in the sport. In the popular contact sports, you are
required to wear a helmet to protect the head from contact and possible blows
to the head. Some of these sports are football, baseball, hockey, NASCAR, bull
riding, bare back riding, and others. Each of these sports have different
helmet designs to help prevent from the sport specific head trauma that may
occur, these helmets are all designed for their sport.
For football, past players and coaches are trying to help
the future of the, the children, learn to play the game safer and with less
risk to head injuries. Some past Atlanta Falcons football players put on a camp
to help kids learn to play the game of football with lower risk, teaching them
proper form and technique to where their heads won’t be in danger at a young
age.
More danger for concussions at an early age is bike
riding, all kids ride bikes when they’re young and no one really likes to wear
the helmet because they think it is the “uncool” thing to do at that age. Kids
fall of their bikes and hit their heads more often than people think and this
is a huge cause for concussions in young children. Elementary schools and
parents are working together to police biking helmet awareness around their
community to help protect their children was the possibility of falling and
getting a concussion.
“More than 70
percent of the football players in the United States are under age 14” – Steven
Rowson, Ph.D.(Childress 1) A main concern in youth football in the present day
is all the contact in practice, not being comparable to the possible contact in
the game situation, but the repeated contact day in and day out is not
beneficial to the head of our youth. A solution in question would be to reduce
the amount of contact in the practices and work more on the pays and technique
with pads, contact would still be a part of practice, but reduce for the young
athletes’ safety(Childress 1). Organizations have made sure that all coaches
and trainers know the obvious signs of a concussion, dizziness, nausea,
headaches, light sensitivity, and confusion.
Some survey results show
that 80% of all adults surveyed cannot identify the common signs of a
concussion, which is putting the children at risk because the adults won’t know
when to take the caution needed in that situation. This effects the adults and
children together, 64% of those adults say that they didn’t seek medical
attention the last time they hit their head on something hard, but 90% of them
said they would get the medical attention for a child. The survey results were
in a way frightening in a sense that 60% of the adults believed you must go
unconscious to have a concussion, meaning if the person did not lose
consciousness they could go on with brain damage never being treated. Due to
all the survey results, there needs to be more awareness for concussions to
prevent brain damage in our youth, and our adults as well.
An experiment is going
to be perused with youth football, they are going to take brain scans of the
players before and after the season for multiple seasons in a row monitoring
the brain activity. This will provide important results while testing
innovative ways to prevent concussions.
The high end of
concussions that occur each year in the United States is at 4,000,000, and
Mississippi State University is researching ways to improve the helmet worn by
football players in youth, collegian, and professional football. They are
studying the head trauma of animals such as big horn rams and woodpeckers,
these animals suffer blows to the head daily. The big horn ram fights with its
head using its horns, so the University is trying to understand how the ram
doesn’t suffer from the kind of brain damage it should. These researchers have
broken down head collisions down to the smallest atom trying to protect the
heads of footballs players across the country. They found that the rams horn
spiral shape provides a way for the shock waves to travel away from the ram’s
head. Production companies have started using a foam like substance in the
inner linings of the helmets like the inside of a rams horn to help draw the
shock waves away from the athlete’s head.
Camus
Albert Camus was a
philosopher for the absurdist’s, he believed that we as people didn’t know the
meaning of life and that we would continue to search for the meaning, but will
never find it. He believed human life was absurd and that we should just do our
best to enjoy it and keep up the defiant chance for the meaning of life. The
absurdist’s believed that researching ways to live longer and prevent natural
things that cause harm to humans is not the way, they believe life is absurd.
The absurdist beliefs
relate to Concussions because this is something that happens in sports or
thrill seeking activities, trying to find meaning of your own personal life.
The research on the other hand disagrees with Camus because it’s people trying
to protect human life. Camus would think is a side effect of trying to find the
meaning of life and thrill seeking. Camus would think the outcome of the
concussion epidemic is just a part of this meaningless, absurd life.
In conclusion,
researchers are working diligently to suppress the concussion epidemic in
youth, high school, college, and professional sports. This epidemic is widely
spread in the sport of football, and it is treated with extreme caution to keep
the children safe.
Works Cited
Driscoll, Sheirlyn. "Concussion in Children:
What Are the Effects?" Mayo Clinic. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb.
2017.
Mayo Clinic Staff Print.
"Concussion." Overview - Concussion - Mayo Clinic. N.p.,
10 Feb. 2017. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
WE RING TRUE | MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY. Mississippi State University, n.d. Web. 20 Apr.
2017.
"New Concussion Survey Reveals Majority of
Adults Are Unable to Recognize Common Concussion Symptoms." Abbott
MediaRoom. Abbott Mediaroom, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2017.
Petchesky, Barry. "A Timeline Of Concussion
Science And NFL Denial." Deadspin. Deadspin.com, 30 Aug. 2013.
Web. 12 Mar. 2017.
"Prevent and Treat Injury for Kids." Childress
Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2017.
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