Effects Of Concussions In The NFL

One of the biggest concerns today in football specifically the National Football League (NFL) is Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries (MTBI) players acquire while participating. In a study done by Casson, Viano, Powell, & Pellman, (2010) who were on the NFL’s MTBI Committee; over a twelve year period nearly 1800 concussions were recorded in the NFL alone. Considering that there are only between eighteen and nineteen hundred active players in the NFL at one time this is a very significant number. The impact of concussions on mental activity has been well researched, the effects on a concussed athletes performance has not. The concussion sustained by football players has an immense effect on both cognitive abilities and neurological function.

Up until the late 1990’s players and medical staffs treated concussions as minor inconvenience, rather than a serious brain injury. It was not uncommon for players to state that they didn’t remember parts or even all of the game the following day. In 1996, the NFL created a panel that would study the effects and number of concussions over a 6 year period. In 2001, the results sent shockwaves through the football world as well as all contact sports. The studies done by the panel opened the floodgates for criticism and law suits against the NFL and its concussion policy and protocol.

The number of concussions in football were studied in two separate six year periods (1996-2002, 2002-2007) and decreased in the latter years (Casson et al., 2010). The number of concussions dropped slightly from .42 to .38 concussions per game, a decrease of 7.6% (Casson et al., 2010). This decrease can be attributed to rule changes and improved helmet technology. To determine the actual occurrence of a concussion...

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... 2010 the long term effects of concussions was examined via anatomical dissection of the brains donated by former athlete’s families. What they found was that repetitive head injury is associated with the development of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) (Mckee et al., 2010). CTE is associated with behavioral and personality changers as well as Parkinsonism, and dementia. In the brains examined that had CTE researchers found excessive buildup of TDP-43 binding protein in specific areas of the brains (Mckee et al., 2010). The buildup of proteins seem to be what caused the personality changes as well as the early onset on dementia and Parkinson’s like symptoms as it is anatomically changing the brain. This could imply that the decrement in motor system function over a long period of time is due to the anatomical change in portions of the brain due to concussions.