The Concussion Crisis in Sports

I remember it being my freshman year of high school and I had been playing wide receiver for the freshman football team all season long with no injuries or setbacks. It was a warm October night in the last game against our rival high school, St. Mary’s. We were playing at St. Mary’s on their freshman football field, which was not in very good condition. There were divots and potholes everywhere. This made me nervous every time I ran my routes because I thought I was going to hurt my ankle. In the fourth quarter I went out for a pass, caught it, turned, and was hit in the helmet by one of the defenders. Sure enough, I was hurt, but not from the poor field. I remember feeling sort of numb and dazed. I didn’t know what to do so I just laid there flat on my back until the trainer came out to examine me. He propped me up and shined a flashlight in my eyes. I remember him saying “concussion” to the other trainer. Luckily I received a minor one and didn’t experience much memory loss or other serious symptoms. I have been fortunate enough to not endure another one and I hope to never experience one ever again. 

A concussion is defined as the most common type of traumatic brain injury. As Toni Monkovic wrote in the New York Times in November 2011, “a concussion is not a bruise to the brain caused by hitting a hard surface. Indeed, no physical swelling or bleeding is usually seen on radiological scans. The injury generally occurs when the head either accelerates rapidly and then is stopped, or is spun rapidly.” The term is most frequently used when talking about sports and sports medicine. Physical symptoms of concussions include headaches, blurred vision, dizziness, vomiting, nausea, lack of motor coordination and difficulty balancing. Cognitive and emotional symptoms of concussions include confusion, disorientation and difficulty focusing attention. In the United States, there is an estimated 1.4 to 3.6 million sports-related concussions annually. Football is the leading contributor in this statistic and many occur in the high school, college and professional level.

I met up with Scott Horton, a Pima Community College athletic trainer, to get a better understanding of concussions, how they affect the body and what athletes can do to attempt to prevent them from happening.

“Concussions aren’t really classified anymore,” Horton said. “A concussion’s a concussion. The severity aspect you kind of see just in terms of recovery time. A more severe concussion takes longer to recover. Personally, that’s kind of how I classify them.”

Treatment involves monitoring and rest. Athletes typically receive tests and the trainer decides when the athlete can play again. 

“A typical recovery time, I would say, is about a little over a week to be game-ready,” Horton said. “You have to be careful though because once you receive a concussion you are four times more likely to have another one.”

Pima Football

Pima Community College is taking concussions very seriously and with the football season over and many concussions coming and going, the athletic trainers have performed tests on the athletes sustaining the injury. Helmet to helmet hits are the most likely source of concussions in football according to Jeannine Stein of the Los Angeles Times, and researchers are trying to develop new ways of preventing head and neck damage.  

When asked if Pima Football would take a different approach in the use of their helmets, Horton said, “If there was a helmet on the market that absolutely eliminated concussions, then everyone would have it. It’s hard to say which helmets are more effective or less effective.”

Xenith helmet

Pima uses Riddell helmets and Horton says the Aztecs have not considered changing to a different helmet.

The new Xenith helmet is the talk of the NFL. According to NFL inside reports, it supposedly lowers the risk of concussions. Unlike traditional foam helmets, the Xenith helmet is comprised of 18 thermoplastic shock absorbers that release air upon impact like an airbag in a car. Theoretically, this helmet reduces the risk of head trauma and should reduce the amount of athletes from sustaining head related injuries.

In the NFL during the past two years, concussions have risen at an astounding rate. Since then there have been more than 100 concussions coming from clean hits and dirty ones, big hits and relatively minor ones.

Some notable players receiving concussions were Indianapolis Colts’ receiver Austin Collie, Arizona Cardinals’ quarterback Kevin Kolb, Philadelphia Eagles’ receiver DeSean Jackson, and Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback Michael Vick.

Collie was hurt the most when it came to head injuries. In 2010, Collie suffered three concussions, missing seven games, and is now in an effort to minimize his risks for the rest of the 2011 season. Twelve weeks have passed in the 2011 season and Collie has been active for ever game.

The 25-year-old Collie says he doesn't give much thought to whether brain injuries he suffers on the field now could affect him when he's 35 or 55 or 75.

"I've known players who play with nine or ten concussions and who have lived on to have successful careers and haven't had any symptoms later on in life, so everyone is different," Collie said on KHTK, via SportsRadioInterviews.com.

A study commissioned by the NFL reported that Alzheimer's disease or similar memory-related diseases appear to have been diagnosed in the league's former players vastly more often than in the national population — including a rate of 19 times the normal rate for men ages 30 through 49.

A survey was conducted in 2000 of over 1,000 former NFL players and found that more than 60 percent of the participants had experienced at least one concussion. That is an astounding rate due to the numbers and has led the NFL to change its rules.

The NFL rule used to be that you could return to practice or to a game once your concussions symptoms resided, but now, players are required to be removed from a game or practice if they exhibit any signs of concussion symptoms and are not allowed to return that day.

This came to much chagrin from the NFL players and coaches. The long-term effects are too detrimental to one’s health. At least in today’s game there are more protective plastic helmets and not the leather ones worn back in the early part of the NFL. There would surely be many more injuries than there already are with the athletes playing today and some of the hits occurring in games.

Concussions don’t just occur in football; they also happen in soccer and basketball more often than you may think.

One Saturday morning a couple years back, I remember attending a soccer game in which my sister Rachel Sargent was playing in. The game was going smoothly as most do, but just a couple minutes after halftime I watched as my sister went up to head a ball in the air and as she came back down she immediately fell to the ground. Unable to stand back up due to the dizziness and unbalance, she sat there, mortified at what happened and didn’t know what to do.

“I remember not remembering anything that was going on, if that makes any sense,” Rachel said when asked about her concussion. “I do remember the pounding I felt in my head and I began to feel extremely dizzy. My first instinct was to get off the field and get out of the way. I wasn't walking straight so I had to be carried to the car by a teammates’ mom and taken to the ER.”

At the emergency room, Rachel explained how she encountered some amnesia and disorientation.

“It was a weird feeling and definitely one I never want to experience again,” Rachel said. “I was really freaked out for a while after and I contemplated quitting sports altogether.”

Travares Peterson

In 2009, former Pima basketball player Travares Peterson sustained a concussion in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II Tournament. He was diagnosed hours after it happened by receiving an X-ray from the hospital. Once he was cleared from the hospital, he was told not to be active for seven days due to the chance of having a severe second concussion.

“The steps I took to become cleared to play was paying attention to all the guidelines the trainers and doctors had for me,” Peterson said.

When I asked for tips to avoid concussions, he replied, “Concussions in sports are gonna happen. I would just suggest that athletes should do what they are comfortable doing on the playing field or court and have no worries about getting hurt.”

So if you are to receive a concussion in sports, here are some tips for further prevention.

Always wear proper footwear for the sport you are participating in. Concussions can be caused when a player slips and hits his head on the way down. 

Wear helmets in football, baseball and ice hockey. Never risk playing without one, even if it is a pickup game. 

Learn some basic first aid to treat concussions. Keep the victim awake and talking, unless unconscious, and prevent them from moving until an ambulance arrives.

According to TeensHealth, every 21 seconds a concussion or other serious brain injury happens in the United States. Concussions are a part of sports and athletes need to be prepared for them happening at any time.