Concussions in sports have always been a topic of interest for a lot of people in the sports medicine industry, but have become more of a known issue in today’s sports. Concussions haven’t always been as big as a deal as they are today, and not always diagnosed right or treated as a serious issue. As concussions become more of a normality more research and facts about them are known.
Decades ago the knowledge on the topic of concussions and how to test for them didn’t come close to the things that we know about them now. Every high school student athlete is required to take an impact test before playing a sport. This is so that their score is recorded and if they need to be tested for a concussion they take it again and the scores are compared. The test tests things like your reaction time, memory, and processing speed. This is something that if they would have had this testing in the last could have prevented long term brain injuries due to concussions and them not being taken seriously and treated right.
In the past they weren’t treated as seriously by coaches and teachers as they now are, and also weren’t taken that seriously by the player themselves. My dad talks about how one time he got hit so hard in the head that he actually went into the wrong huddle and couldn’t see straight. They took him out of the game for a few plays and then he was put right back in. Today concussions are a huge deal, and when a player gets one they are often not allowed to play, and even aren’t allowed to participate on some parts of a class. I think that because of the big deal that coaches and teachers make out of a concussion, often times players won’t report when they have the symptoms so that they won’t have to sit out.
The amount of concussions reported in the past ten years have doubled. With high school football accounting for forty percent of sports concussions. I think this is due to the fact that football is one if not the most physically demanding sports, with the hard blows and tackles. Helmets are a huge part of the problem because a study showed that helmets only reduced the risk of brain injury by twenty percent. When you have a sport like football when you are continuously hitting your head and your neck is often jolted around, helmets should have more security in limiting your risk of getting a concussion.
Concussions are not always as serious as they are made out to be. Someone can barely bump their head and they say they have a concussion just so they don’t have to participate. Then you can have kids who actually hit their heads really hard during a sport and take the impact test and get a score that says they don’t have a concussion when they actually do. Concussions are a very serious injury and always need to be taken care of the right way instead of blowing them off because later down the road they can have a huge impact on the body.
Decades ago the knowledge on the topic of concussions and how to test for them didn’t come close to the things that we know about them now. Every high school student athlete is required to take an impact test before playing a sport. This is so that their score is recorded and if they need to be tested for a concussion they take it again and the scores are compared. The test tests things like your reaction time, memory, and processing speed. This is something that if they would have had this testing in the last could have prevented long term brain injuries due to concussions and them not being taken seriously and treated right.
In the past they weren’t treated as seriously by coaches and teachers as they now are, and also weren’t taken that seriously by the player themselves. My dad talks about how one time he got hit so hard in the head that he actually went into the wrong huddle and couldn’t see straight. They took him out of the game for a few plays and then he was put right back in. Today concussions are a huge deal, and when a player gets one they are often not allowed to play, and even aren’t allowed to participate on some parts of a class. I think that because of the big deal that coaches and teachers make out of a concussion, often times players won’t report when they have the symptoms so that they won’t have to sit out.
The amount of concussions reported in the past ten years have doubled. With high school football accounting for forty percent of sports concussions. I think this is due to the fact that football is one if not the most physically demanding sports, with the hard blows and tackles. Helmets are a huge part of the problem because a study showed that helmets only reduced the risk of brain injury by twenty percent. When you have a sport like football when you are continuously hitting your head and your neck is often jolted around, helmets should have more security in limiting your risk of getting a concussion.
Concussions are not always as serious as they are made out to be. Someone can barely bump their head and they say they have a concussion just so they don’t have to participate. Then you can have kids who actually hit their heads really hard during a sport and take the impact test and get a score that says they don’t have a concussion when they actually do. Concussions are a very serious injury and always need to be taken care of the right way instead of blowing them off because later down the road they can have a huge impact on the body.