Concussions In Football

Football is an enormous part of American culture, and people/kids start playing when they are pretty young. Fathers have their sons play football, and the trend usually continues down the generational line. Unfortunately, injuries are common in football just like they are in many other sports, yet football has a past of extreme violence. Injured football players will push themselves through injury and rehab to get back on the field, because that is just the nature of the game. Occasionally athletes try to get back to playing too soon, and risk further and potentially more severe injuries. One of the main injuries people receive from football, and something that has been a big deal lately, is injuries with the head. In recent years, concussions

According to Ropper and Gorson, a concussion is, “an immediate and transient loss of consciousness accompanied by a brief period of amnesia after a blow to the head” (Ropper, 2007, p. 166). Michael C. Miller from Harvard University gave a perfect description of what happens to the brain when a collision occurs. His words are, “The brain accelerates very quickly, then decelerates just as quickly as it bangs into the skull. Nerve cells get stretched, connections between nerve cells get disrupted or sheared” (Miller, 2010, p. 8). Short-term effects dealing with concussions may lead to headaches, nausea, difficulty and/or inability to focus, irritability, and impaired memory. (Moser, 2002, p. 92). As I was explaining earlier, the full extent of long-term effects from concussions are still being explored. Experts are not completely aware of the long-term effects that come with concussions. Concussions are extremely common everywhere in the world, but affecting 128 out of 100,000 people in the United States yearly (Moser, 2002, p. 168). Sports are the second leading cause of concussions after car accidents (Moser, 2002). So this leaves a question to be asked: how common are concussions in football from the youth to high school

With the “Heads Up” programs, coaches and officials are taught how to deal with and how to identify concussions. The next step is getting the parents involved. A formal concussion education program intended for parents is not in existence through youth football organizations; this needs to change. Although parents will be able to easily tell when their child is a little out of it, they need to be taught how to deal with it and the steps to take in order to get their child to full health. After the parents are educated, the next step is to teach the players about