The Concussion Epidemic

The Concussion Epidemic

This cartoon illustrates a football coach during a game giving positive feedback to a player who has knocked out the brain of another player. The brain is seen bouncing across the playing field while the rest of the players evoke no emotion while the assistant coach gives a worried look yet says nothing. Recently throughout the past years concussions have been getting the attention of healthcare providers and the media. Yet according to the cartoon, many contact sports coaches seem to approach these serious brain damaging conditions as “not so serious” or as opportunities to win games. This tells the public eye that if we don’t find a way to reduce the amount of these concussions, then these sports will be looked at as way too dangerous for the children of parents. Concussions cause serious damage to the sensitive human brain and with each new concussion one suffers the likelihood that another concussion will occur increases. A concussion is blunt force trauma that causing jarring of the brain leading to temporary dysfunction of the brain. Short term effects include confusion, dizziness and nausea; long-term medical consequences include motor-neuron diseases, depression, and dementia (brain impairing disorders.) Helmet to helmet hits are banned by the NFL yet, these rules seemed to be ignored by officials. Contact sport coaches (such as football and hockey) should take action to protect these high risk athletes in creating ways to minimize the risk of concussions such as improved equipment and changes in the rules of these sports with strict reinforcement. The NFL has announced to give $20,000,000 dollars in grants to universities in the United States for funding of studies to find long term effects for ...

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...hockey, etc. and they suffer a concussion? Surely the effect within their brains is bound to affect me as well. Obviously the article in the New York Times had the strongest convincing effect over me due to the overall evidence and medical conditions listed within the article. The article gave more detail and of course supported itself with strong evidence while not showing a bias or giving its argument using hyperbole. The variety of ways to make an argument is very huge yet the one you use does affect the overall effect of the ones who see it. I feel that authority and principle are the strongest ways to influence your audience since the author/artist can include ways they found or have done to back up their argument by use of statistics, facts, and even show of a high authority figure such as a college professor, medical doctor, or even a government official.