ALS: Lou Gehrig's Disease

ALS and CTE is a very serious topic, and many haven’t joined the conversation or don’t know much about the two subjects. In the sports world, many athletes are being diagnosed at a very young age with these awful diseases. I believe that in order for the number of athletes being diagnosed to drop, they must further their knowledge on the subject.

ALS which stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, is a neurodegenerative disease that attacks the nervous system. ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease because of the famous New York Yankees baseball player Lou Gehrig, Gehrig had a strong bad and was on of the best first baseman’s. Gehrig played strong for 2,130 consecutive games, he reported physical changes halfway through the season of 1938,

Football players hit and get hit on a daily basis for a living, they take hit after hit and hit back just as hard if not harder. The same goes for boxers, they are constantly taking numerous blows to the head and do the same in return. It’s only a matter of time until they are hit so hard that they have to be carried off the field or out of the ring or don’t get up at all. It’s no doubt that the amount of force their brain takes during these hit doesn’t affect them, they may just feel as if their bell got rung a bit so they just ignore it and continue to play. Pete Frates was a baseball player for Boston University College, and graduated in 2007. Frates was diagnosed with ALS in 2012 upon diagnosis he lost his ability to speak and motor function, since then he is known as the creator of the Ice Bucket

Ultimately concussions can lead to ALS and CTE again due to the repetitive brain trauma. Females are four times as likely to obtain a concussion because they have weaker neck muscles. Symptoms of concussions are dizziness, chronic headaches, trouble focusing,trouble speaking mood swings, and sensitivity to light and noises. A concussion is no joke, if an athlete experiences any of these symptoms they should immediately stop what they are doing and tell a coach or parent how they are feeling and go and see a doctor. Once an athlete knows for sure that they have a concussion they should rest as much as they can, it’s absolutely necessary that they do not participate in any sport or activity, if they go back to their sport too soon and didn’t let their head heal right, they can experience second impact syndrome. Second impact syndrome is when the brain swells a lot after it has gone through a second concussion because it hasn’t properly healed from the first. Isabella Oishi was a soccer player and suffered from a concussion during a soccer tournament when her teammate passed her the ball and it struck her in the head, Isabella immediately felt dizzy but didn’t say anything and continued to play. She thought it was like one of those injuries that she could just play through but it was so much more than that. Isabella experienced unrelenting headaches and went through