Head impacts and concussions caused by contact sports are a quickly growing epidemic among young athletes. When left undetected, concussions can result in long-term brain damage and may even prove fatal.
To preserve the young athlete’s head health, mental cognition and ability to succeed, it is critical that coaches, players, and parents are aware of the inherent dangers and how to properly perform a concussion evaluation.
CDC reports show that the amount of reported concussions has doubled in the last 10 years. The American Academy of Pediatrics has reported that emergency room visits for concussions in kids ages 8 to 13 years old has doubled, and concussions have risen 200 percent among teens ages 14 to 19 in the last decade.
While the first hit can prove problematic, the second or third head impact can cause permanent long-term brain damage. Cumulative sports concussions are shown to increase the likelihood of catastrophic head injury leading to permanent neurologic disability by 39 percent.
As most people understand, high impact sports, such as football, hockey, soccer, and boxing can lead to concussions. Many people are not aware that other sports can lead to concussion as well. For example, a gymnast falls, a volleyball player gets a spike to the head, a horse rider is bucked from their mount. Even a golf frisbee player could get whacked hard enough for a concussion.
Even when you are practicing recreational activities you need to be aware of the risk of receiving a concussion.
The following sports are often at high risk for concussion:
High school football accounts for 47 percent of all reported sports concussions, with 33 percent of concussions occurring during practice. After football, ice hockey and soccer pose the most significant head health risk.
Without medical professionals present to assess the head impact or impact measurement data to review, head health management standards decline. Athletes are left vulnerable and ill-equipped without the information readily available about their own health.
Let’s start with a microcosm example. Typically by the time an owner of a business takes some sort of safety action, you know that a) there is a serious problem that has been going on for years, and/or b) that business is about to be investigated by an agency of the US Government. Guess what? The National Football League meets both of those criteria.
NFL announced that it will be hanging the official size and weight “concussion poster” in the locker rooms of all 32 teams this upcoming season to warn players about the dangers of concussions.
The NFL has now made the concussion issue a priority following years of both serious medical problems with former NFL players and a good dose of criticism by head injury experts and various lawmakers.
The below numbers indicate the amount of sports concussions taking place per 100,000 athletic exposures. An athletic exposure is defined as one athlete participating in one organized high school athletic practice or competition, regardless of the amount of time played.
The issue of concussions is not just a professional sports problem. It is everywhere from household accidents to the playgrounds to car accidents to every possible aspect of daily human life.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), as many as 3.8 million sports and recreation-related concussions are estimated to occur in the United States every year.
Symptoms usually include confusion, headache, and blurred vision.
In more extreme cases, vomiting and loss of consciousness can occur. But one of the major problems with concussions is that signs of the injury are not always that easy to recognize at first.
Each year, an estimated 1.7 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI) annually. Of them:
As for young people, the CDCP indicates that concussions account for nearly one in 10 sports injuries for those between 15-24 years of age, making sports second only to motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of brain injury.
The reason for this, according to a 2009 study conducted by the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, may be due to athletes returning to the playing field too soon.
In fact, their study concludes that 40% of high school athletes who suffer concussions return to the field of play prematurely, thus putting themselves at greater risk for more severe injuries.
Children aged 0 to 4 years, older adolescents aged 15 to 19 years, and adults aged 65 years and older are most likely to sustain a TBI.
Almost half a million (473,947) emergency department visits for TBI are made annually by children aged 0 to 14 years.
Adults aged 75 years and older have the highest rates of TBI-related hospitalization and death.
The Sports Concussion Institute estimates that 10 percent of athletes in contact sports suffer a concussion each season. According to the CDCP, during 2001-2005 children and youth ages 5-18 years accounted for 2.4 million sports-related emergency department (ED) visits annually, of which 6% (135,000) involved a concussion. For young people ages 15 to 24 years, sports are the second leading cause of traumatic brain injury behind only motor vehicle crashes.
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