Image by AL.com By Hannah Dorros
Staff Writer Concussions are a very serious head injury that most spectators and athletes do not pay attention to, because victims don't always know how serious the trauma actually is. Most concussions happen when a player is in play during a game as opposed to practice. For men, football is the most common sport for concussions, with a 75% chance. For women, soccer is the most dangerous, with a 50% chance. Concussions are caused by a forceful bump or jolt to the head. “How do I define concussion? It’s an alteration of mental status brought on by a biomechanical force that may or may not include unconsciousness. Often there is no unconsciousness. In the spectrum of concussion, amnesia is worse than confusion, unconsciousness is worse than amnesia,” says Dr. James P. Kelly, Director of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence for treating veterans with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and former neurologist for the Chicago Bears. A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury. Concussion causes temporary loss of brain function leading to cognitive, physical and emotional symptoms, such as confusion, vomiting, headache, nausea, depression, disturbed sleep, moodiness, and amnesia. Concussions cause long term consequences. Having multiple incidents can contribute to the development of mild cognitive, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). It can also lead to post concussion syndrome. Post-concussion syndrome is a complex disorder in which various symptoms, such as headaches and dizziness , last for weeks and sometimes months after the injury that caused the concussion. Annals of Neurology published about how bad concussions were getting and decided to take action on the problem. Researchers did this by making a special scanner and tested it on people who had no brain injuries and people who have had concussions finding that in heads of people with brain injuries there was a special grey matter, and that the people with no head injuries did not have it. They tested the same people after a few weeks and found a decrease in gray matter. “A study of 2,500 retired NFL players found that those who had at least three concussions during their careers had triple the risk of clinical depression as those who had no concussions. Those who recalled one or two concussions were 1 1/2 times more likely to be diagnosed with depression,” explains Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz, research director of the University of North Carolina’s Center for the Study of Retired Athletes. During a year there are up to 1.6 - 3.8 million concussions. A professional football player endures an estimated number of 900 to 1500 blows to the head a season, making concussions a dangerous effect on the players. Damage to the brain caused by concussion can last for decades after the original head trauma, according to research presented at a American Association for the Advancement of Science. The finding comes to the press at the same time as 4,000 former football players file lawsuits stating that the National Football League failed to protect them from the long-term health consequences of concussions. In the end, an estimated 5.3 million Americans live with a traumatic brain injury-related disability because of concussions. “Unlike a broken ankle, or other injuries you can feel with your hands, or see on an X-ray, a concussion is a disruption of how the brain works,” states USA Football & the CDC. So yes, a concussion is not just a large headache from a bump to a head, but a traumatic head injury. Comments are closed.
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October 2018
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