Concussions: Common Injury in Football

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We as a society love the sport called football and demand a new season every year. Unfortunately, there is a cost to this demand. The cost is concussions. The concussion is an injury that causes brain damage. Football players are hit with mind numbing tackles almost every game. Safety is a huge issue in football because the skull and brain collide multiple times with force. Furthermore, many more problems are likely to arise later in life. One is called by the name of Parkinson’s Disease. Athletes, especially in football, are very susceptible to this injury.
Concussion is a traumatically induced physiological disruption of brain function that can be caused either by a direct blow to the head or by indirect impulsive forces transmitted to the head. The current standard of treatment for sport-related concussion is physical and cognitive rest until the athlete is asymptomatic, with a stepwise approach to rehabilitation prior to return to play. The applicability of this approach to children and adolescents is not clear, as neuropsychological impairment in this group is known to lag behind recovery of symptoms. (Johnson, 2011)
The National Football League and NCAA are attempting to fix the issue of concussions through rules and regulations. These rules are geared towards protecting the head and helmet area of players. The big issue regarding concussions is the athlete’s attitude toward the concussion. Football players, especially those in high school, do not take symptoms of concussions seriously. They would rather finish the game than worry about their well-being. Coaches, parents, and sports advocates need to educate players at a young age that a game is not worth the risk of permanent damage to their brains. Teams also n...

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...are not able to recognize when a player is suffering from symptoms of a concussion. This could result in the players returning to a game when they are not physically able to return. Medical personnel are advised to look over players after hits to the head. This will give players proper evaluations before a decision is made on whether or not they should get back in the game. Future technology should help to reduce the number of concussions suffered by football players. Hopefully scientists can look at concussions from a physics standpoint and realize they must reduce the force applied to the head during a big tackle. This is the main reason for concussions. We do not have the proper equipment to protect players from devastating tackles that affect the helmet area. The force applied to the cranium is too much for the brain to handle and needs to be drastically reduced

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