Growing up, I was very involved with sports, just like the many other people. As most of you already know from experience alone, playing certain sports like football, and soccer tend to result in various injuries, ranging from bruises, to nagging aches, and pulled ligaments. Occasionally you might have suffered a more severe injury like tearing ligaments, breaking bones, or becoming severely concussed from a blow to the head. Unfortunately, the latter of injuries mentioned seems to be happening more often. Now the question is, are sports becoming too dangerous, thusly resulting in a higher frequency of injuries, especially in adolescent athletes?
Through the years, I’ve played countless sports like soccer, basketball, even volleyball, and I’ve dealt with my fair share of injuries. In fact, every sport I have participated in has resulted in me breaking a bone. I’ve broken fingers playing basketball and volleyball, broke my wrist and forearm playing soccer, and broke nearly every bone in my face from baseball. The injuries didn’t stop here, I have also torn ligaments, and had a few minor concussions. Luckily for me, these injuries healed correctly and I was able to return to sports in no time. Unfortunately for some athletes, they aren’t so lucky and miss significant amounts of time due to injuries such as torn ACL’s or suffering severe concussions. The latter of which happened to one athlete in particular that I knew, a girl named Kaleigh Morin, who suffered a very severe concussion. At the time, Kaleigh was the goalie of the varsity girls’ soccer team when this traumatic incident occurred. As she went up to try and catch the ball, an opposing player also went up to try and intercept the ball. The two of them collided. Kaleigh of course suffered the worst of the impact and ended up suffering a severe concussion. She ended up missing the rest of the season, but that’s not all. In addition to missing the season, she also missed quite a bit of school because she couldn’t remember much at all. Cases like Kaleigh’s are happening more and more in sports all the time now and it’s becoming an epidemic. In recent years, concussions have become more prominent in sports especially in adolescent athletes from early teens to young adults. …show more content…
As reported by the experts of Head Case Company, “a concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury that occurs when a head impact jars or shakes the brain inside the skull” “What is a Concussion.” Concussions can occur from any unusual jolt to the neck or head area resulting in the brain crashing into the skull. Concussions are measured by the severity of the blow to the head and how your body reacts. “What is a Concussion”. Concussions range from minor concussions to very severe concussions depending on how much the brain got injured.
One might ask, are the rate of concussions on the rise in sports and should we be nervous with our children playing sports? Yes, concussions are definitely on the rise. In fact “…1-5 high school athletes will sustain a concussion this year,” as stated by the experts of the Head Case Company “What is a Concussion”! That means on a team with ten players there would be two players with a concussion. To say that concussions rates are just rising is an understatement, in reality they are happening so frequently parents worry if they should even let their kids play sports. According to the research of Cusimano et al, nearly all sports caused athletes to have concussions, some more than others. The sports which resulted in the highest percentage of concussions were ice hockey, soccer, and football. The research of Cusimano et al reported “ice hockey was the highest with 44.3%, followed by soccer with 19%, and football with 12.9%” (Cusimano et al). Even though athletes have higher possibilities of sustaining concussions in sports, concussions happens all the time without sports as well. Granted these concussions are not as frequent as the ones seen in sports, they could happen any time during the day. Repeated blows to the head or neck area isn’t good for the body and can eventually develop into major problems. One main problem in particular is the