Multiple Concussions In Football

Concussions have always been a known risk when playing contact sports. Until recently they were not seen as a big deal. If you got knocked around a little too hard one play you were given some water, sat out a couple of plays, but as long as you were still conscious you were able to continue playing. It is our sheer ignorance of concussions that has allowed the effects long and short term to go unrecognized. With new studies showing the effects a concussion can have on the brain long and short-term, it is not worth the health risk to allow your kids to play the game of football.
Over time concussions have become more and more common among sports related injuries. Last season the NFL reported 271 game related concussions. In a 16 week season …show more content…
CTE is described as a progressive, degenerative brain disorder found in persons with multiple traumatic brain injuries. Main cause of CTE is a protein called TAU. Tau when functioning normally Tau helps stabilize and support certain structures within the brain cell, but when the brain suffers a traumatic hit the proteins start to bend and clump furthermore, The build-up of these clumped proteins is what starts to kill the neurons and eventually the cell. The protein is then circulated throughout the brain, and this leads to the deaths of other cells. Currently, doctors can only diagnose CTE is after the player has died, that is because CTE needs to be diagnosed by brain degeneration and he buildup of protein deposits in the brain. According to the Concussion Foundation 87 of the 91 former NFL players that have donated their brains to study were diagnosed with CTE post mortem. One other fact about CTE is that since it can only be diagnosed post mortem there is no way to know exactly how many hits caused the disorder, one hit to the could start the process of a brain disorder that affects your attitude, basic motor functions and …show more content…
A game that is and has been loved by millions for decades, but simply put, it is not a safe game for your children to play. Based on research it seems that it is going to be a long wait until it is truly safe to play. Not every sport is safe and there are always opportunities for hits to the head, with that said there are only football a head on collision is certainly going to take place during the span of a 60 minute game. Even with new equipment, but we do not know if it will ever be possible for a helmet to stop the brain from shifting when a player gets hit, and it seems that the more we learn about concussions the less we know. Even though we know what causes a concussion there isn’t a way to properly determine how many concussions are too many. The growing threat of CTE and that it cannot be diagnosed until a player dies is a horrible though. Until there are better, more consistent ways to diagnose, and treat concussions, it is just not worth children’s health for a