Concussions are a huge impact on many of today’s athletes. Research on concussions improve year after year. Concern for concussions has increased immensely over the past few years. Even mild concussions have been reportedly causing more problems than most people think. They have been proven to cause memory loss significantly up to 36 hours after the injury. More severe concussions can cause memory loss up to and over a week long. The article on web md did a study on high school athletes and you can read the article here. A single concussion can cause long lasting brain damage. Concussions can cause neurological and psychological problems even a year after the trauma. Head injuries in all sports are being researched more and more. New rules in sports are being placed to protect the players and prevent more injuries. Even the NFL have been handing out fines now for “head hunting” defenseless players and unnecessary hits. After getting one concussion you are more prone to sustaining another concussion. These types of injuries are forcing football players to end their careers or force them to retire. Here is a good article on the effects of just one concussion. Concussions can lead to much worse than just slight memory loss. Junior Seau for example became extremely depressed, starting abusing pills, made bad business decisions, and even stayed away from his family and friends. After his death, scientists discovered and believe that the effects of his concussions during his career led to his suicide. This article is depressing because of how a great man became so entrapped in his feelings to commit suicide because of a head trauma caused by a sport he loved. Concussions are no longer taken lightly today and are trying to prevented by rules and regulations.
Sources:
http://www.gq.com/entertainment/sports/201309/junior-seau-nfl-death-concussions-brain-injury
http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20030131/even-mild-concussions-cause-memory-loss-in-high-school-athletes
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130312092642.htm
Sorry, I forgot to include the link to the study I referenced. Here is that link from ESPN’s “Neuropsychological Testing For Concussions Might Not Be A Panacea.”
Alyssa, I think that it’s important and good that your school took concussions very seriously and wanted to make sure its athletes were recovered before they returned to activity. Still, I am not completely sold on the effectiveness of those “tests.” I took one of them in high school after my first concussion. Problem was, I had never taken one of the tests before I had gotten the concussions, so there was nothing to compare it to. Raw data from those tests, which focus on reaction time, memory, and accuracy, aren’t useful unless you have a baseline.
Even if the tests are administered properly, this article suggests, they might not be that effective at measuring a person’s condition. Number one, these tests aren’t meant to stand alone; they’re supposed to be used in conjunction with other methods of determining an athlete’s condition. The biggest problem is reliability. If imPACT tests were reliable, a person who takes the test multiple times while in the same condition (ex: with no concussion), should get the same score. But “ImPACT’s various components have correlation coefficients of 0.15 to 0.86,” meaning they’re not. A study in the Current Sports Medicine Reports says “[T]he false positive rate appears to be 30 percent to 40 percent of subjects of ImPACT … the false negative rate may be comparable.” That means the test is barring recovered athletes from returning to activity, and more alarming, allowing a significant number of athletes to return before they should.
Why do most people still believe in imPACT tests? One reason is that imPACT has released a majority of its own praise and studies that “prove” the test’s worth. The conflict of interest makes me question their data and lean towards the data and results produced by impartial judges.
In high school I was a three season athlete and our school district took concussions very seriously. Many of my friends had to sit out for weeks after getting a concussion just to be safe. The school made all athletes take an online concussion test before they could take part in any sport even sports that do not contain much contact. I can say personally, I probably had one concussion but had a play off game later that week and didn’t inform the school trainer. Now looking back I should have said something for a game is not more important than my long term memory and over all health. Well,now I certainly know for next time . If you want to know more about concussions check out this website:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/concussion/basics/definition/con-20019272
I 100% agree that most athletes never want to actually sit on the bench or not play because of an injury. Most people including myself always tough it out even though it is not necessarily the best thing to do in the long run. I have a couple friends who played high school football and never admitted to being seriously injured and when they went on to play college football it became worse when they had to take concussion tests and it affected them big time. Head injuries need to be taken seriously no matter what age level you are competing in.
Christopher,
In high school I got three concussions, so this post resonates with me. I think you highlighted good points about the compounding danger of multiple concussions. Part of the problem with concussions is the lack of reporting. Often athletes feel that that shouldn’t report their concussions, whether it’s because they don’t want to disappoint their team, or they don’t feel their injury is serious. This article in the New York Times talks about the athletic culture that encourages this underreporting. Many athletes don’t know the dangers of multiple concussions. After my third concussion, my doctors sat me down and explained that if I got any more, I ran the risk of serious memory loss and slower cognitive function. To this day, I can’t remember most of my first semester of my freshman year in high school. Many of my other friends were in similar situations, and some of them decided to keep playing through the pain when I stopped playing. In the world of concussions, I think that the culture is affecting the science. The more people underreport, the more severe symptoms and trends we see. Education is key in this respect.