November 24, 2009
Head Injuries Annually Jonathan Baer
Concussions in Modern America Inside this issue: Head Trauma in the NFL
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Crunching the Numbers
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Concussions in Non-Contact Sports
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Issues can be found
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In our modern America, roughly 1.4 million people suffer a concussion—or similar brain injury—every year. This is a statistic taken on a wide variety of people, from children to adults. Of these 1.4 million, the vast majority of people, about 1.1 million, will survive the encounter, and continue to live almost as if it had never happened. But what about the other three million? Unfortunately, these are the people who are not so lucky. Most of these 3 million will also survive the encounter, but will have what is called a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), which is a category for serious head injuries. Unfortunately, a small percentage of these will die from their encounter with a concussion. A Concussion is defined as when the brain bumps
against the wall that is your skull, and thus causes bruises and tears. Your skull is filled with a special fluid, called spinal fluid. This fluid acts as a cushion for your brain, but if you hit your head hard enough, there is nothing the spinal fluid can do. The problem with concussions is that people will consistently try to continue whatever they were doing before, be it playing sports or going to work, as if it had never happened. This can often lead to a TBI or at least make the injury much more difficult to treat than it would have been if you had laid off. Symptoms of a concussion can be easily recognized— they include nausea, vomiting, confusion, slurring of words, dizziness, black outs, and double vision. It is scientific fact that the key to curing a concussion is rest, and for more seri-
ous injury such as TBI, proper medical treatment. If you or anyone you know has a concussion, make sure that the right thing is done.
created. Unfortunately, many concussions in a contact sport like Footbaall are “played down,” or made to seem much less bad than they are in reality. Obviously, the problem with this “strategy” Is that it can lead to a TBI, or in the long run do much more dam-
age than would have happened if the player would have taken their time on the bench.
This image shows a young lady who has a concussion. Her whole face is swollen badly as a result of an impact.
Concussions from Sports As can be imagined, Football has a very high rate of head injuries like concussions, in all levels of the game. Because Football is so high contact, there are players bumping heads everywhere on the field at once, and thus a high risk of concussions is
Head Injuries Annually
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Head Trauma in the NFL Just yesterday, the NFL announced St.Louis Rams, and there where that they will allow independent probably several other cases of doctors to examine and diagnose this throughout the NFL. The averhead injuries for 32 age Linebacker of the existing NFL in NFL Football teams; this just goes weighs about to show how seriously 300 pounds. the NFL takes concusImagine at least sions and TBIs. In the one of those NFL, concussions Two rams butting heads— guys jumping occur regularly. Yes- what else is there to dem- onto you in terday Kurt Warner onstrate the powerful hits order to stop in the NFL? suffered a minor you from movconcussion while playing the ing—its not suyrprising that there
are that many concussions. The worst part about a concussion in the NFL is that you can guarantee the player wont be very happy about having to miss potential playing time. A post study showed that out of 160 NFL player, 30 had played down or lied about their symptoms pertaining to some form of head injury. Football players are taught from an early age that they have to have a warrior mentality to their playing—any injury can be played through..
Out of every 160 professional A CT scan of brain trauma in someone’s head.
Football players, 30 have lied about their head injuries.
Crunching the Numbers In the NFL, more than half of the players have admitted that sometime or another in their career, they have suffered a head injury of some kind— usually a basic concussion. The question to ask is, what is this abuse doing to the NFL players? It is common knowledge among professional Football players that the sport is knocking of as much as ten years of their projected life-span, so why do they play?
Many play because of the money; others play to try and support their family. Whatever the reason, many of these long term problems are a result of a concussion or TBI. Once a person has suffered a concussion, and has properly recuperated from it, the first thing the doctor will say is that you must be very careful not to hit your head. Usually, this person will be cut
off from any potentially threatening sports—why? because it’s the only way that it is guaranteed to heal. Concussions can be tricky in that they can linger for a particularly long span of time. It is a hard injury to overcome, because of the amount of time spent off the field, but in the end, its saving your life.
Head Injuries Annually
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Concussions in Non-Contact Sports While Football takes the cake in the number of concussions annually category, there are other sports that have high rates of concussions as well. Believe it or not, besides football, the most concussions in any sport is girl’s Soccer. While there is no scientific explanation for that, statistically, it comes in second. Next on the list is boy’s Soccer which, due to its high level of contact when fighting for a ball, is not particularly surprising. Next on the list is surprising however: girl's Basketball, with boy’s Wrestling following. The rest of the order goes boy’s Basketball, to girls softball, to boy’s baseball, to girls volleyball. The
important thing to remember is that these statistics are taken out of 100,000 students, and that these are taken out of every individual game or practice. This means that A man suffering the 47 listed under major head trauma football, the 36 listed by being kicked in the under girls soccer, the face 22 listed under boy’s soccer, the 21 listed under girl’s bas-
ketball, the 18 listed under wrestling, the 7s listed under boy’s basketball and girl’s soccer, and the 5s listed under boy’s baseball and girl’s volleyball, are all taken out of a tally of 100,000 students, basically every day. This is a highly alarming statistic, because those numbers are going to add up really quick. High school sports are major contributors to head trauma in the United States every year, and those statistics should help prove it.
Issues can be found Some issues can be found in the statistical data of concussions. Because it is impossibly difficult to keep track of how a concussion occurs, then classify that into a statistic, there is no way of knowing: 1) how the concussion occurred, and 2) how serious the injury was. Contrary to popular belief, there is a huge difference between a concussion and a TBI. A concussion is the bruising of the brain as a result of impact or similar forces, while a TBI is
a permanent medical condition, which requires major treatment to combat. Concussions in rare cases lead to a TBI. This is usually the result of not following the instructions of your doctor, or using the “playing it down” technique again, in order to make yourself seem better than Illustration of how a concussion occurs... you feel.
Concussions can be very dangerous if not handled correctly. If there was one thing that you should take away from this Newsletter, its that when you hit your head and you think that you have a concussion, then don't wait; contact your doctor immediately. It could potentially save your life.
All these statistics are taken from what is basically a daily tally!
Works Cited “Concussions,” CINN, 2008, November 24, 2009, <http://www.cinn.org/other/concussions.html> “Facts about Traumatic Brain Injury,” BIAA, 2005, November 24, 2009, <http://www.biausa.org/ aboutbi.htm> Howard Fendrich, “NFL, union approve about half team neurologists,” Google, November 24, 2009, November 24, 2009, <http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALegM5jKlmpZ7t9A0jLJ6fQ> Kelly, James P. “concussion.” Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 2009. Grolier Online. 24 Nov. 2009 <http://gme.grolier.com/> Shalise Manza Young, “In Patriot’s Locker and around the NFL, concussions no longer out of mind,” projo.com, November 21, 2009, November 24, 2009, <http://www.projo.com/patriots> Shaun Dreisbach, “help for head bumps,” EBSCOhost, October 2009, November 24, 2009, <http:// web.ebscohost.com/ehost> Pictures courtesy of Flickr.com
Resources: Website: Yamani Durani, “Concussions,” TeensHealth, April 2009, November 24, 2009, <http:// hidshealth.org/teen/saftey/first aid/concussions.html#>
**the highlighted source above is the national resource’s website