Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Brain Injury in Professional Football
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/opinion/head-injuries-in-football.html?_r=0
This article explores the extreme dangers of head to head contact in football. After a serious injury at Tulane University in which a student broke his neck and may or may not walk again, the NFL decided to donate $30 million to study brain injuries and brain damage at the National Institute of Health. They studied nearly 3,500 previous professional NFL players and found that NFL players are more likely to die of brain diseases including Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's disease. Helmets are proven to not be of significant help to preventing brain injuries because many brain injuries occur from the sudden stop of a body in motion. The NFL now uses cognitive tests to assess the severity of brain injuries and concussions, but how effective really are these tests?
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This very interesting! I thought that lou Gehrig's disease and Parkinson's were genetic. Could the injuries effect the vulnerability?
ReplyDeleteI agree this was interesting! I wonder why they felt the need to commit suicide? We have some many different forms of treatment for depression associated with many disorders, could there be a way to treat depression associated with repetitive CTE's?
ReplyDelete- Morgan Eary
With some of the examples in this article we can see how brain injury can lead to depression and as far as the NFL goes no matter how much money they put into studying the extent of brain injuries, this problem will continue to persist as it is a contact sport and there is no way to avoid this.
ReplyDeleteI think with further research, football can and morally should be made as safe as possible for the players playing. According to the article, people who play professional football are almost 4 times more likely to die from brain diseases such as Parkinson's. That is an astounding increase in vulnerability and that should not be taken lightly. Yes, this is a contact sport but there needs to be better regulations and equipment that prevents this type of injury as well as any other injury as much as possible. There may be no successful way to fully rid the NFL and football leagues in general of these head injuries, but there can be a development in technology and equipment to make the sport safer.
ReplyDeleteThis is personally a topic that I am very interested in. I have previously considered being an equipment manager, so I have read up a lot on articles like this one. One thing that I feel should be pointed out is the difference between the NCAA and the NFL.The NCAA has been taking a proactive stance towards the development of sports equipment. The NCAA has published an article that explains how they have improved equipment so much that they can see the force of a hit (as well as other related factors) and a coach can see it on a computer screen enabling them to make a decision about concussions and/ or their ability to continue playing.
ReplyDeleteI do find it interesting how the article claims that veteran NFL players are at a higher risk for certain diseases due to concussions. I mean one too many could cause some serious damage, but I didn't believe it could cause those specific disorders.
I think this is really cool, but VT was the first school to test out those helmets I mentioned back in 2001!
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/resources/latest+news/2012/december/helmet+technology+making+an+impact