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 to do differently when treating head injuries? Junior Seau and Sidney Crosby are just two out of thousands of professional athletes who have endured brain injuries throughout their professional careers. They are also two of the most famous sports figures in the world, and by far the most talked about when discussing concussions. Junior Seau and Sidney Crosby have dominated their respective sports for years. Junior Seau is a good example of the effects from concussions after a career. Sidney Crosby shows the effects of concussions for a player during his career. George Visger is another professional athlete who feels the affects from concussions everyday since he retired from the National Football League. Athletes are continuously getting bigger, faster, and stronger and it is routine for athletes to just shake off a blow to the head and continue playing. No two head injuries are exactly the same and each one of these athletes underwent different treatment plans tailored to their specific injury. What precautions should be utilized following head injuries in professional sports?
Concussions cannot be treated in the same manner as other injuries, such as broken bones or torn muscles. Since concussions affect the head and brain, it is extremely important to take the necessary steps and precautions before rushing back to playing. My own best friend is suffering from post concussion symptoms. Gianni admitted to me that he clearly had multiple concussions throughout his high school career, and even thinks he had some during his Pop Warner days as a kid. He is just a typical American that competed in the sport he loved, which is why concussions are such a serious topic in sports. How can a normal person who is not nearly capable of playing professional be plagued by concussions? He had to quit college football his junior year, after what he thinks was close to his 10th concussion. He now suffers from poor memory, and cannot maintain focus for a long period of time. His life has been severely altered by concussions, and unlike all professional athletes He made no money while playing. He has to deal with the affects from concussions the rest of his life and he didn’t even enter the labor force!
Junior Seau
Junior Seau, a star linebacker during his time in the National Football League, is the most recent victim who has died due to head injuries. Seau took his own life on May 2nd, 2012 after he shot himself in the chest. After his death, his family decided to have his brain tested for CTE, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. This is a brain disease that can occur from multiple hits to the head and can only be discovered after death. After the study from the National Institutes of Health for research was conducted, the pathology report showed “five researchers -- two NIH neuropathologists and three independent experts -- examined slides of Seau's brain and all confirmed that there were signs consistent with CTE. None of the researchers was aware of the identity of the brain when initially looking at it” (Kounang and Smith). What is surprising is that Junior Seau never actually had any history of concussions.
So how could Junior’s team doctors handle his medical situation differently? How can a middle linebacker in the National Football League, who leads in with his head and helmet for the majority of his tackles taking multiple shots to the head, never be tested or diagnosed with a concussion? I believe the team doctors and National Football League are at fault for never having him tested after he looked dazed and confused on numerous occasions throughout his playing career. Junior Seau himself is also at fault for never asking to come out of the game and concealing his head injuries. It is estimated that 47% of athletes do not report feeling any symptoms after a concussive blow (“Sports Concussion Institute”). This means that only one out of every two concussions are actually reported and treated because athletes would rather keep playing and be a perceived as tough instead of looking out for their health. Even though these professionals are playing for their job each snap, it just isn’t worth destroying their future over a couple plays. Doctors need to be more alert during the game and when they see players get woozy they need to immediately have the coach pull them from the game and have them tested until they are 100% healthy to return to action.
George Visger
George Visger is another professional football player who has suffered many concussions during his career. “For more than 20 years, former San Francisco 49ers lineman George Visger has lived his life out of hundreds of small yellow notebooks. In them he scrawls the minutiae of his daily life: 4:45 am left house. 2 stops to find coffee and a roll. Paper work till 9:25. 10:05 Ed called. The notebooks are the last vestige of his memory” (Smith). Visger lives a life similar to the movie 50 First Dates, where each day a girl suffering from long-term memory starts her day thinking it is from years in the past, before a serious car accident altered her life. After Visger suffered his last concussion he went into a coma and almost died. It was the culmination of a life using his head to tackle that almost killed him. He is one of many cases of ex-NFL athletes struggling with memory loss, depression, and sudden bouts of rage. Scientists have spent years explaining the symptoms Visger and others suffer by examining the brains of athletes after they die, but methods for detecting concussion in living athletes are becoming more sophisticated.
Sidney Crosby
Sidney Crosby, highly considered as the greatest player in the NHL and only behind Wayne Gretzky overall, was plagued with concussions for quite some time. His injuries were extremely different from Junior Seau’s and Gianni as he was actually diagnosed with a concussion. Crosby’s story has some good and bad sides in how his head injuries were treated. Crosby was blindsided on the ice by a hit to the head from an opposing player on January 1, 2011. Hockey players are usually considered the toughest guys in any sport and he came out of the game in the second period and later returned in the third period. He was visibly shaken on the play and probably should not have returned to playing. A couple days later, Crosby was checked into the boards face first and again was visibly shaken by the hit. He still remained to finish this game as well. The next day he was taken to Pittsburgh for medical tests and was ruled out for the remaining 41 games of the season as well as the playoffs (Fitzpatrick). Perhaps if he was taken out of the game the first time he was hit and sat out for a week or so he could have returned to the ice symptom free. Of course that wasn’t the case as players care so much about their reputation and playing in every game instead of focusing on their health.
Four months later, Crosby began experiencing concussion symptoms again. The next NHL season was scheduled to begin in October and the Pittsburgh Penguins placed Crosby on injury reserve to start the season. Sidney played in his first game since the injury on November 21 and on December 5 he collided with a teammate and also took another hard hit from an opposing player. The Penguins handled the situation in the correct manner and decided to sit him out the next couple of games for precautionary reasons. He finally returned to the ice over three months later and has been symptom-free ever since (Fitzpatrick). I think this is one of the better stories and procedures taken when dealing with head injuries. Although the Penguins should have never let Crosby return to the ice after the initial injury, they decided to keep him out of action for almost a full season. It was a huge blow to the team not having their captain, the team’s best player, and the league’s best player but the organization had to do what was needed for Crosby’s health. They knew they could not just stick him out there putting not only his career at risk but his life as well. They waited to clear him until he was absolutely ready to return to playing.
As a sports fanatic I see concussions and head injuries occurring often in all sports. The National Football League is definitely where most of them occur and that is due to the helmet-to-helmet and bone-jarring hits. A professional football player will receive an estimated 900 to 1,500 blows to the head during a season (“Sports Concussion Institute”). There are approximately 1.6 million to 3.8 million concussions that occur each year, while 78% of concussions occur during games and not practices (“Sports Concussion Institute”).
Throughout my sports career I have seen many collisions and head injuries. Luckily, I have never endured a serious head injury, such as a concussion. In high school, concussion tests were pathetic to say the least. Once you pass a concussion test, which is not difficult at all, even with a concussion, you were cleared to play in the next game. He admitted to me that on multiple occasions, he returned to a high school football game after suffering a concussion. He also told me that it was a huge mistake, and the procedure for high school sports needs to be changed immediately. I never really thought about how serious brain injuries actually are and they really do start with your playing days before being a professional. It is estimated that 53% of high school athletes have sustained a concussion before participation in high school sports, and 36% of collegiate athletes have a history of multiple concussions. Because the frontal lobes of the human brain continue to develop until age 25, it is vital to manage youth concussions very conservatively to ensure optimal neurological development and outcomes (“Sports Concussion Institute”).
Why do athletes choose careers that they know are very risky? Money is the motive and when athletes are given the choice between safety and more pay, they will more likely than not take the extra money. Most children dream about playing professional sports and spend their entire childhood towards trying to achieve this goal. When athletes have gone as far as playing collegiately, put all their time and effort into their respective sport, and are good enough to go professional, then of course they are going to enter the draft and make the big bucks. The large amounts of money outweigh the risk of health.
Roger Goodell has made some changes recently. He decided to move up the kickoff line this past season because kickoffs are one of the most dangerous plays in football. A study conducted by the consulting firm, Edgeworth Dynamics, finds that the changes led to a 43 percent drop in the number of concussions reported during kickoffs from 2010 to 2011 (Breslow). The NFL has also donated $30 million to the National Institutes of Health for research on the correlation between brain injuries and their long-term effects. Goodell also plans for independent neurological consultants to be on the sidelines during each game to support team physicians in diagnosing and treating players. Right now questions such as, “How many fingers am I holding up? What day is it? What’s our team name? are asked on the sidelines.” They basically test for concussions on sidelines in the same manner that police officers test for drunk driving. iPads will soon be used on sidelines for concussion testing. They hope “being able to compare the results of a baseline test and a post injury test side by side in real time will speed diagnosis and help doctors and trainers recognize when a player should be removed from a game” (Battista). This still will not diagnose every single concussion because there’s no such thing as a perfect concussion test, which is the main concern.
In 2011, the National Hockey League began using new protocol for concussions. They eliminated the blind side hit from the game completely and players suspected of having a concussion must be removed from the game and sent to a quiet place free from distraction so the on-site team physician can examine them. The physician uses the Sports Concussion Assessment Tool test to evaluate the player (Rosen). This still has not eliminated the fact that players return to the ice immediately after testing is done. The NHL also implemented a new hybrid-icing rule to reduce the amount of hard hits against the boards that frequently lead to concussions, “Chasing down icing hasn't been eradicated - nor should it - but this change will greatly cut down on the number of times a defenceless player is forced into a physical situation and dangerous position” (Boylen).
It is steps like this one that can alter a mans life, and the change bears little effect on the actual outcome of a game.
There are many other things that can and must be done when dealing with head injuries in professional sports. Since both football and hockey players are required to wear helmets, why not put sensors in the helmets to identify concussions? These helmets will also be lighter and won’t have as much of an impact as they do now when collisions occur. The companies that design the helmets are always looking out for brain injuries and try to construct helmets to protect the brain. Major League Baseball recently implemented a rule requiring all pitchers to wear a protective hat on the mound, to protect them from lightning quick comebacks that can possibly kill them, “Traumatic head injuries have caused all major sports leagues, both professional and amateur, to take a good, hard look at what they do and what they can do to protect their players. Pitchers are more at risk of traumatic head injuries than any other player on a baseball field” (Machir). Changes similar to this have also been made in the NFL. Riddell, the official helmet designer of the National Football League and one of the industry’s leaders in sports equipment, has created the Riddell 360. Riddell 360 is a new helmet designed to improve the wellbeing of football players. The primary piece of technology is a hexagonal liner system inside of the helmet that is made up of energy managing materials, which, coupled with strategically-placed face mask hinge clips help to reduce forces from frontal impacts (Brinson). This liner system is designed to reduce the impact of hits to the head. Technology is always improving and companies try to out due each other to gain the upper edge in the industry. Even though Riddell is the official helmet maker of the NFL, if another company comes out with a different design to prevent concussions then I am sure the NFL will make the switch over and do what is in the best interest for the league and the players’ safety.
Conclusion
The National Football League and National Hockey League are billion dollar businesses and the safety of the players who help run these businesses should be their number one priority. Instead of penalizing players just one or two games for illegal hits, they should suspend them for as much time the opposing player misses due to the illegal hit. Players do not want to be suspended without pay for that long and will change the way they play the game if need be. If a player leaves a game due to a suspected head injury, chances are they actually do have some sort of injury in one way or another. It should be required that they sit out the remainder of the game instead of letting them return to action and putting their life in jeopardy. Workshops and classes on head injuries and the effects it has on long-term health should be mandatory for all athletes to attend prior to the start of each season. If athletes actually see the statistics first hand and the number of cases where former players lost their lives directly due to these injuries then maybe they will think twice before covering up and hiding their symptoms and injuries. It isn’t just the team doctor’s responsibility to detect head injuries. Players must protect their own brains and look out for themselves even after their playing careers are over.
Works Cited
Battista, Judy. “NFL Will Expand Concussion Efforts During Games.” The New York Times. 26 Feb. 2013. Web. 10 April 2013.
Boylen, Rory. “New Hybrid Icing Rule A Sensible Change.” Hockeynews.com Web. 10 Sept. 2013.
Breslow, Jason J. “NFL Concussions: The 2012-2013 Season in Review.” PBS. 1 Feb. 2013. Web. 10 April 2013.
Brinson, Will. “New Riddell 360 Helmet Future of Concussion Prevention?” CBS SPORTS. 7 Sept. 2012. Web. 11 April 2013.
"Concussion - WebMD: Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention." WebMD. Web. 8 April 2013.
Fitzpatrick, Jamie. “Sidney Crosby Concussion History.” About.com. 21 Mar 2012. Web. 9 April 2013.
Kounang, Nadia and Stephanie Smith. “Seau Had Brain Disease That Comes From Hits To Head, NIH Finds.” CNN. 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 8 April 2013.
Machir, Troy. “New Protective Hat.” Sportingnews.com. Web. 1 April 2014.
Rosen, Dan. “New Concussion Protocol Goes Into Effect Tonight.” NHL Insider. 16 Mar. 2011. Web. 10 April 2013.
“Sports Concussion Institute.” Concussion Facts. Web. 10 April 2013.
Smith, Stehpanie. “Ex-NFL Players Long Lasting Damage.” CNN.
Web. 5 February 2010.