Youth and teen athletes commonly ignore signs of concussions for fear of letting their team, coach, or parents down. They feel the pressure to play through the pain, even though the issues of concussions are commonly talked about in the media. Olympic gold Medalist Cindy Cone joined the U.S. Olympic soccer team while still in college and played for five years before she received her first of two concussions. Cindy received a hit to the head during a game and was knocked unconscious. She got up and continued to play, but realized that something was seriously wrong. The athletic trainer on the field ran some tests and prohibited her from playing the rest of the game. Cindy went to a neurologist and was prescribed a few days rest. Concussion symptoms …show more content…
Having an injury and being out of a sport can be one of the hardest and emotionally draining times in an athlete’s life. Better protective equipment can help minimize the extent of the impact on the body. There are several sports, including girl’s lacrosse, that do not require a helmet to be worn. Recently, Cascade [a lacrosse equipment company] has introduced a bendable helmet that is supposed to help minimize the impact of injuries to the head. The girl’s game has resisted the implementation of the helmet because of fear that the game will become more aggressive, thus leading to more injuries (Baumbach). According to Dawn Comstock, a University of Colorado professor who studies high school sports injuries, any unintended consequences associated with increased recklessness in girl’s lacrosse would be a result of external factors such as poor parenting, coaching, and officiating, rather than the implementation of the helmet (Baumbach). In football, there are several new products, such as the Jolt Sensor, that have shown that there is a need for better helmets. The Jolt Sensor is a small, clip-on accelerometer that can be mounted on an athlete’s helmet to measure any impact an athlete sustains. According to Ben Harvatine, creator of the Jolt Sensor and MIT alumnus, the sensor receives the information of the impact as soon as it happens (Matheson). The information is then sent