Concussions in Football

Paul Kowalczyk
Lakeside High School
5th Period

In this paper I am going to be talking about concussions in Football. I wanted to research this topic because I did not know how easy it is to get a concussion in sports. I also chose this topic because it can relate to the news today. The National Football League has just recently passed a rule that fines any player that tackles another player and creates head-to-head contact. I really wanted to know more about this new rule, and how this is going to affect the game.

A concussion is a mild brain injury that happens when the brain quickly moves back and forth in the skull. Concussions are a short loss of normal brain function that is usually caused by sports injuries or by a blow to the head. American Football is one of the easiest ways to receive a concussion. Even though the players wear helmets they can still get a concussion. Researchers have found that out of 17,549 college football players, 888 players have received concussions and out of those 888 players 131 received another concussion that same season. Researchers at Virginia Tech, using sensors attached to the helmet of a college player, recorded more than 3,300 hits to the head during 10 games and 35 practice sessions in 2003 (Kuwana, 2004). They found that players receive an average of 50 hits to the head every game, and with an average force of 40 times the force of gravity each hit. This is similar to a punch of a boxer. The most severe hits were recorded around 120 times the force of gravity, which is close to a severe car accident. It is not unusual for a player to endure one or two of these during a game. How do these hits affect players? Complaints of headaches are common, and so are confusion and memory problems. On December 2, 2009, the NFL announced new rules for players who sustain a concussion. The new rules say that players who sustain a concussion should not return to a game or practice on the same day if he shows symptoms of a head injury. These symptoms include memory loss, confusion, dizziness and headaches. The old guidelines said that players should not return to a game only if they lost consciousness. “When I came in, the game was played by one motto: by any means necessary. Now, 15 years later, there are just too many rules.” Those words are from Ray Lewis, the Baltimore Ravens Middle Linebacker, when asked about the new NFL rules (King, 2010). Very recently the NFL created new rules that are supposed to protect a defenseless player from receiving blows to the head by fining any player up to $75,000 who makes helmet-to-helmet contact with another player. Before this rule helmet-to-helmet contact was considered a personal foul and if the defense committed this foul then the offense received 15 extra yards to the end of the play. Dr. Michael Collins and a team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of British Columbia divided high school athletes who had had a concussion into two groups: those who had suffered only one concussion (60 athletes; average age, 15.8 years) and those who had suffered three or more concussions (28 athletes; average age, 16.1 years). Compared to athletes who had suffered only one concussion, athletes who suffered from multiple concussions were: 6.7 times more likely to lose consciousness, 3.8 times more likely to have memory problems for events immediately after the injury, 4.1 times more likely to become confused, 4.4 times more likely to have an altered mental state for more than five minutes, and 9.3 times more likely to have 3-4 signs of a concussion. Athletes of all ages who have experienced a concussion should be evaluated by a specialist before they return to any sports, said a major doctors group Monday in the latest sign of concern over potential lasting damages from head injuries. The statement by the American Academy of Neurology follows rules already adopted in college sports and in the NFL aimed at preventing blows to the head. Research involving NFL players has suggested that repeated concussions can have a long term neurological consequences. Doctors want to get the message “to the athletes their parents and their coaches that concussions are a big thing and it is an injury to the brain” said Dr. Mark Halstead. Concussions “need to be treated as if they are a big deal. The brain is pretty important.” The neurology academy is the most authoritative medical group when it comes to concussions. And its advice should be heard by all athletes of all ages. The academy also says that there should be a certified athletic trainer at every athletic event and even practices where there is a chance that there might be a concussion (AJC, 2010). Dr. Ann McKee, an associate professor of neurology and pathology at Boston University who has been studying the brains of deceased football players, wanted to show the damage repeated hits to the helmet can cause. A slide of the brain of Louis Creekmur, a 10 year NFL offensive linesman and Pro football Hall of Famer, shows hundreds of tiny brown triangular toxic proteins called tau, choking off cellular life in the brain. “You can see there are hardly any areas untouched by the damage. I would call it incredible chaos in the brain. Louis was demented when he died” Said McKee. Over the past three years McKee has received the brains of 16 former NFL players, some have suffered dementia, ALS or severe depression. Testing has been done on 14 of the brains and 13 of those brains have been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the same condition that was affecting Louis Creekmur. Dr. McKee has also tested the brains of dead college and high school football players and she found evidence of CTE in a couple of them as well. “I can say confidently that this is a distinctive disorder that you don’t develop in the general population,” McKee said. “In fact, I have never seen this disease in any person who doesn’t have the kind of repetitive head trauma that football players would have.” Can you take violence out of football? Can the NFL still rule American sports if it’s a kinder gentler game? It will have to try if it wants to reduce concussions and CTE in players.
Experiment:
Materials: For this experiment I will need: 20 mice, a wooden maze, a rig to give a mouse a mild concussion, and cheese.

Hypothesis: If I put a mouse in a maze and time it then it will compete better than a mouse that has had a concussive injury.

Prediction: I think that the mouse without the concussive injury will do the best in the maze.

Independent Variable: In this experiment the mouse will be the independent variable.

Dependent Variable: In this experiment the time in the maze will be the dependent variable.

Control: My control is the mouse that has not had a concussion.

Procedure:
Step 1 put the cheese at the end of the maze.
Step 2: Give 10 of the 20 mice a mild concussion.
Step 3: Put a mouse that did not get a concussion into the maze and see how long it takes it to get to the cheese by timing it with the stopwatch.
Step 4: Repeat Step 3 until all the mice that have not received concussions have gone through the maze.
Step 5: Put a mouse that has received a mild concussion into the maze and see how long it takes the mouse to get to the cheese by timing it with the stopwatch.
Step 6: Repeat Step 5 until all the mice that did receive a mild concussion have gone through the maze.
Step 7: Compare the times of the two sets of mice.

Citations

Kuwana, Ellen. "Neuroscience for Kids - Football Concussions in the NFL." UW Faculty Web Server. 18 May 2004. Web. <http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/nfl.html>.

News Services. "MDs Target Concussions." Atlanta Journal Constitution 2 Nov. 2010. Atlanta Journal Constitution. 2 Nov. 2010. C6.

King, Peter. "The Hits That Are Changing Football." Sports Illustrated 1 Nov. 2010. Page 34-38.