...10/2/14 Concussions in Sports “As Larry got checked out by doctors’ moments ago, he re-enters the game on offense as the Cardinals attempt to win the game.” Concussions are becoming a huge topic in all four major sports leagues, The National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Hockey League (NHL). Most of the concussions do tend to happen in football or in hockey, but even boxers, professional wrestlers, Mixed Martial Artists (MMA), and soccer players have been diagnosed with concussions. “Over 250 current or retired athletes - including 50 NFL players and 12 hockey players - have pledged to donate their brains, including Keith Primeau, who retired from the NHL in 2006 due to post-concussion syndrome” (McIlroy and Mick). That itself is a pretty crazy number and that is just in the past five years. That kind of shows how committed to fixing and understanding the concussion crisis is upon us. Concussion protocols in all sports needs to be redefined. There have been concussion protocols for the NFL and NHL that have been put into place since the frequency of concussions started happening. Teams across the nation and even world have started to employ neurologists for when a player gets a concussion so that the proper steps are taken. Usually a player has to sit out if he has failed a part of the concussion test. Recently an Arizona Cardinals player named John Abraham had his first serious concussion. He had...
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...made by many TV announcers during NFL (National Football League) games. Hard hits are a major part of football, but they also come with their consequences. All kinds of injuries can occur from devastating hits, but the most destructive injury is the concussion. According to a video done by Sports Science, “100,000 concussions occur in all levels of football, and 60% of these are from head-to-head collisions.” According to an article on NFL.com, “154 concussions were reported in 2010, while there were 127 in 2009. Statistics show a 21% increase in head injuries.” In order to reduce the amount of concussions suffered by players, not only should the NFL put in new rules to protect the players and improve equipment, but the NFL players also need to do their part during and after their careers in order to keep their bodies healthy. When the offensive player is catching the football, he is in a defenseless position. He not only has to catch the football, but he also has to watch out for the defender. Many times, the defender tries to prevent the offensive player from catching the football. As a result, he unleashed a hard hit on the other player. Because of these hits, both the offensive and defensive players are put in a position where they are highly susceptible to a head injury. Basically, this situation is caused because of the defensive player; therefore, the NFL should take action to further discipline these players. Currently, the NFL fines and sometimes even suspends players...
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...Rhetorical Analysis The illustration I chose is trying to portray the NFL as not showing concern for players who have had or are going to have head trauma. It depicts the NFL as only caring about the money and not the players, they are expendable. It shows a wealthy man in a suit, wearing glasses and holding two big sacks of money. The wealthy man also has his heart jumping out of his chest to portray that he is heartless and he does not care about the players health. To the left of the wealthy man, it shows and huge football player holding his head in pain. The football player also has his brain jumping out of his head to portray that his brain is gone or damaged from all the concussions he has received. What sticks out the most is that...
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...down to the ear. Next came the plastic helmets, which had a facemask and minimal padding. Much later in the 1990s, the modern helmet debuted. This new, technologically advanced helmet has great features such as inflatable padding, a visor, and a durable material known as polycarbonate, a harder and safer plastic.The changes to the helmet have greatly made the game safer, but there is still room for improvement. Based on an article in the Chicago Magazine, “if the facemask attached to the sides of the helmet instead of to the top, much of the force would be released away from the player’s head.” With this new placement of the facemask, there would less impact on the head, causing a reduction in the number of concussions. According to Dr. Mawji from the Chicago Magazine, the NFL should use helmets with Kevlar and should place sensors in every helmet. Kevlar is a material used in bulletproof vests and would provide enough protection in the helmet to protect the head. Also, by placing sensors in each helmet, medical professionals would be able to see how hard each hit really was, which would make it easier to diagnose them with...
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...These are all real cases of NFL football players whose brains had CTE. Boston University’s case study revealed the brain tissue of 90 of 94 deceased former NFL players have been positive for CTE. Unfortunately, to identify CTE in the brain, a sample of the brain must be examined and tested. This means the person must be deceased before they can be positively diagnosed with CTE. The NFL at first denied the connection of CTE and other degenerate diseases to concussions. But eventually after all these findings, the NFL was forced to do something. The NFL has since issued concussion guidelines, which include a telephone hotline to report when a player is being forced to play contrary to medical advice. The NFL Game Day Concussion Protocol has been put into place to further protect players. The NFL, college, and high school teams are also limiting the number of contact practices allowed during the season. I think the helmet sensors could be useful. The sensors could help indicate whether the impact was great enough to cause a concussion and if the player should then see a doctor. But the sensor wouldn’t...
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...fallen and hit your head? If you answer yes to this question, then you might have endured a concussion. New technology is making the chance of concussion less likely and making contact sports safer for athletes to play. Helmet companies have always been developing helmets in ways to help prevent concussions. With new technology being invented to make sure that concussions are being more preventable. In recent years, the concussion rate has increased severely. A concussion is a traumatic brain injury with causes temporarily loss of the brain’s function. Concussions are graded from one to five according to safety(Shahady and Petrizzi 30). Five being the worst and one being the least severe. A concussion is usually the result from...
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...Today, concussions are a serious factor in most sports and have moved to the center of attention in public awareness. According to the Sports Concussion Institute, a concussion is “a complex pathophysiological process that affects the brain, typically induced by trauma to the brain” (2016). Most concussions occur without the individual losing consciousness yet these impairments can lead to dementia, aggression, confusion, impaired judgment, and depression and may not be treatable. In fact, per Marcos Abreu, “the American Academy of Neurology discovered that athletes are at greatest risk of repeat injury in the first 10 days’ post-concussion and suggested that the more head injuries a person suffers; the more likely they are to face complications...
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...Benny Nduwayo Peter Beyer Eng Comp 26 February 2015 Mike Webster Concussions have been a big problem since the day the NFL started. People did not know how dangerous football was until the crisis of Mike Webster broke out in the 90s. He played for Pittsburgh, played in the center, and wore number 52. By wearing that number he knew he obviously had to be the toughest player on the field. By playing in the center, there was no glory for Mike Webster. It was play after play while going in head to head with other players. Most guys play for 6 years or so, and then retire but that was not the case for Mike Webster. He played for 17 years in a dangerous game that he loved a lot. After he retired from the NFL, he was a different person than he was before he started playing in the NFL. Pam Webster recalled, “To see his brain declining years later was such a sad thing, because he was incredibly smart, and what I've said the boys have this gift that they see detail that no one else picks up on, and Mike had that gift.” During a football game, sometimes Mike would see someone flexing, moving, and he would then draw them off to the side just by moving his body. He basically knew where everything was on the field. If you were to look for that in his old films when he was playing, you would see mike notice something like that play, and he would turn to Terry Bradshaw and tell him to change the play. Mike was the master of the game for sure. Mike’s ex-wife Pam Webster, said in League of...
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...Occupational Safety and Health Case Study Draft Introduction Concussions have casted a dark shadow over sports throughout the last decade. They are the most common head and brain injuries suffered by athletes. A concussion is “a type of traumatic brain injury that is caused by a blow to the head or body, a fall, or another injury that jars or shakes the brain inside the skull” ("Concussion - WebMD: Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention"). The major problem regarding concussions is that they are not visible to the human eye. Concussions occur all the way from Pop Warner leagues as a child to the professional leagues. My friend has played football his whole life. Unfortunately, he has been plagued by concussions ever since he started to play the sport. He is a prime example of an ordinary kid who plays a sport he loves, but has altered his future forever. Commissioners are actively trying to reduce the number of head injuries that occur while playing. However, the main problem regarding head injuries in sports is that players tend to rush back to their respective sports, without proper testing and treatment. This results in athletes risking their playing careers, a life filled with long-term head complications, and eventually putting their lives in danger. As an injured athlete, there comes a point where you have to ask yourself, is rushing back to the game really worth a lifetime filled with head injuries and complications? So what do team doctors need...
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...Football Conference. These conferences consist of 32 teams are divided into four divisions. The NFL players union was first formed as a result of poor conditions involving health care and threats to a player’s livelihood in the event of injury. Over time several events were instrumental in establishing the essential benefits that players have today. This paper will outline background information on the NFL while identifying some legal issues that the organization may encounter while determining which federal, state, or local laws could be affected as a result of these legal issues. Recommendations to minimize possible litigation will be provided along with addressing the organizations benefits of joining a union along with detailing the unionization and bargaining process and the effects this has on the organization. Professional football has become the most prevalent sport in America and the NFL has become the most prized sports enterprise in the world. The league sold more than 17 million game tickets in 2008 and an estimated three-quarters of the American population watched at least one NFL game on television (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008). The NFL season culminates with a championship game; The Super Bowl held in February and has become one of the most popular happenings in American pop culture history. This has not been always the case. During its inception in the 1920s, the NFL struggled to find acceptance and stability for several years and did not become popular until...
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...considered when examining the future of professional sports and the potential for long-term injury. This is especially true when looking at traumatic brain injuries in professional athletes. Health care professionals are facing conflicting obligations in working for professional organizations and athletes. They have the ethical dilemma of whether to try to get the athlete back onto the field as quickly as possible, as long as they are healthy. That being said, with concussions and the recent findings on CTE, the long-term effects of such injuries could be damaging. Thus, it creates a complex dilemma for leagues and health care professionals on how to avoid this issue. This is especially rampant in the NFL. Although there have been some changes in concussion protocol, helmet-to-helmet hits, the moving of kick-offs by five yards to reduce concussions in the league, protection of defenseless receivers, and others, players still constantly are affected by unavoidable injuries. There is a huge dilemma at play as the NFL and players are making tons of money every year. It is very difficult for athletes to retire to avoid such injuries, as the game that they play may be the only thing that they know. It may well very be their only stable source of income as...
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...Jose A. Jilpas Rebecca Millan Engl-1302 VF1-Composition 2 - Rhetoric 9 December 2014 The Big HIT in the NFL: Head injuries are changing the way the game is played I firmly believe that the future of the NFL and all of its players is in jeopardy of being lost as the American sport as we know it simply due to the fact that too many injuries are occurring in the NFL today than what was happening in the past. Sure past players got hurt, but players now hit ten times harder, play ten times tougher, it’s obvious they are due for a serious injury, it’s just a matter of time and when, surely they make millions each year, but is all that money worth the risk of losing your life or possibly harming it? Imagine this, you’re at your sons final football game as he’s a senior about to graduate, he’s got the crowd rooting for him, he’s the one who snaps the ball, yes the quarterback of the team. The defense is running full force, showing blitz when suddenly “ WHAM!” he takes a huge hit from a defensive player and stays laid out on the floor , suddenly coaches and staff from the team rush to the field while he remains still, the crowd silent , awaiting the outcome . Slowly he gets up with the help of the staff and coaches, he’s then carted to the locker room by team staff where they tell the parents that they are checking him for a concussion because it’s UIL protocol when it comes to hard extensive hits taken by a defenseless player. Not one person who loves football can deny that...
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...Long-Term Effects of Concussions A football legend known for his dominant hits on the field and love for the game, tragically lost his life do to the side effects from the head-on-head contact he faced throughout his career. Junior Seau was an NFL Linebacker and was constantly taking hard blows to the head over the past 20 years, his injuries were not properly treated and overtime led to a brain disease. There has been no scientific research that has proven there are long-term effects to concussions, but many athletes who have experienced concussions believe that concussions cause significant brain damage over time. Many people ask what a concussion is. A concussion is a form of a traumatic brain injury, traumatic brain injuries occur when an individual sustains harms to the head and internal brain damage occurs. Concussions can cause dizziness, headaches, blurred vision, coma, and seizures if not treated properly (Brainhealth). Damage done to the brain can range from temporary loss of brain function to bruising and swelling of the brain or even tearing of blood vessels and injury to nerves. Athletes who return to their sport without full recovery put themselves at a high risk for serious brain damage. Imagine your brain like a broken bone, when we break a bone in...
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..."A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury—or TBI—caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head or by a hit to the body that causes the head and brain to move rapidly back and forth. This sudden movement can cause the brain to bounce around or twist in the skull, creating chemical changes in the brain and sometimes stretching and damaging brain cells" ("Concussion"). Concussions can and have torn apart people’s lives. Concussions can be very serious. They cause death and horror. Concussions can have lasting effects. These effects can come in the form of brain diseases and other problems. A professor studied people with no history of a concussion and people who had suffered concussions over 30 years ago. She found out that these concussions...
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...Concussions in Athletes Patrick Austin DeVry University Concussions in Athletes Junior Seau, a favorite player of many professional football fans, committed suicide in 2012. Although Seau seemed to have everything going his way, he quietly suffered from depression, one of the many symptoms of repeated concussions Those close to Seau knew something was not right the man they all knew and loved. Some of them just chalked it up to him adjusting to life after football. Many players go through an adjustment period after stepping down from a glorious career in the limelight. However, this was not the case with Seau. He was suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE. What is unique about Seau’s suicide is he shot himself in the chest. The common belief is he did this to preserve his brain for scientist to study how it was affected by suffering many concussions during his 20 year football career. And, eight months after his death, the scientists who examined his brain announced they had found evidence of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), a dire neurological disease linked to concussions, which has been a factor in the deaths of many other NFL players (Penn, 2013). The fact that a player would kill himself because he was suffering from symptoms of repeated concussions speaks to the importance of properly diagnosing and treating head injuries. Other players have suffered from the symptoms of brain trauma. Some, like Dave Dureson, have even taken their own lives. These...
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