91 Head Trauma

In 1995, the Board of the NFL’s retirement plan agreed that injuries sustained during his football career had caused Webster to suffer total and permanent mental disability. In addition, Webster’s doctors concurred that blows to the head that Webster accumulated over his career damaged his frontal lobe, causing cognitive dysfunction. Following his death, Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian American, physician, forensic pathologist and neuropathologist performed an autopsy on Mike Webster’s body. As Dr. Omalu was conducting the autopsy, he pursued the root of Mike’s cognitive disabilities. Furthermore, Dr. Omalu diagnosed Mike Webster with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) , a degenerative brain disease found in athletes, military veterans, and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma.

The main reason I chose this article is the fact that the NFL is having a terrible opening week, due to the fact that so much has gone on and the Ray Rice occurrence opened the whole situation up. It’s terrible that all of this has occurred and that Rodger Goodell is under some hot water because of it. I figured the fact that Ray Rice was a part of this article and the fact that he was the main reason all this has happened, that this article would be a great fit for my topic. Pelissero, Tom. " 3 Things to Know about the NFL's New Drug Policy."

Any issue involving professional sports and athletes is almost guaranteed to be headline news in today’s society. This is particularly true when it comes to the National Football League (NFL), especially when it involves one of the league’s best teams and player. In 2014, during the AFC Championship football game between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts, there was a significant controversy that possibly had an impact on the outcome of the game; however, the Patriots went on to win the game 45-7. This controversy involved tampering with the game balls, in particular deflating the footballs, which became known as the Deflategate scandal. Since this scandal has to do with the NFL, one of the game’s best quarterbacks (Tom

Everything Thomas does, he needs to be carefully supervised so he does not harm anybody or himself. Everybody who has experienced more than one concussion in their lives needs to take it easy and watch out for themselves and the people around them. Thomas’s wife is definitely right to be against the sport for their 14 year old son. She just does not want to see her son go through the same pain that her husband did. Symptoms such as mood swings are a very serious condition that needs to be payed attention to.

One major problem that many doctors have recognized is that concussions not only affect players while they are playing the game of football but their lives long after their career ends. Articles written by (Nancy Didehbani) and (Marshall Kerr) discussions how player’s brains functions long after their careers end. Some of the issues they found with concussions are Short and long term memory loss, prescription drug abuse and depression and in some of the worst cases, suicide (Kerr). Studies of the brain after a NFL athlete’s careers show strong correlations linked to concussions. Which raises the question should the NFL require players who are diagnosed with concussions during their playing careers receive therapy and treatment in order

In the true story based movie and the documentary, the dangers of head injuries in football are laid out for the viewer. Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered the brain injury chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE; however, the NFL was in denial about the effects football had on the brain and had on causing CTE. I believe that the NFL’s denial to the accusations were detrimental to many football players and that serious consideration should be taken into the way football is played overall. When Dr. Omalu originally diagnosed CTE on Mike Webster and the NFL denied that football was the cause for his death and disease.

Some of the tests revealed damage to the amygdala which controls mood. Additionally the NFL players scored much lower on memory tests, and had worse verbal skills (Hedin, 2015) 5. Due to the recent number of suicides & violent crimes committed by former players, there is more of a need to research the correlation between the head injuries in the NFL and brain disease even more C. Thesis Point 3: What steps the National Football league has taken to protect players long term health and safety 1. With the scrutiny the NFL has come under, they have developed a new protocol for the diagnoses and treatment of players with concussions 2. Under the new protocol, any player who exhibits sings of a concussion, even the most remote sign, must come out of the game and be checked out by the medical staff, they may not return to the same game if they undergo tests for concussion.

In 1994, then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue formed the “Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee”, to which he appointed the New York Jets team doctor Elliot Pellman as chair, even though Pellman had a distinctive lack of knowledge and experience in neurology, being instead a rheumatologist, specializing in joint pain such as in the knees. They originally claimed that concussions were an occupational risk, changing their stance to instead that there was no link at all after Hall-of-Famer Troy Aikman, Quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, took a knee to the head, resulting in a complete lapse in memory of all the events of the game prior. Commissioner Tagliabue can actually even be quoted as dismissing concussions, saying “On concussions, I think is one of these pack journalism issues, frankly… There is no increase in concussions; the number is relatively small… The problem is a journalist issue.”

Abstract With Football becoming the most popular sport in society today, injuries are bound to occur despite all the safety measures taken. As a result, Concussions are one of the most common injuries football players receive throughout their careers. This review of literature will take a look at symptoms of concussion’s, and their effect on retired NFL players later on in life. The research will show that players who receive concussions during their career will show signs of depression, Alzheimers disease, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), and even suicide in some cases. There are three stages of concussions such as mild, moderate, and severe all with the potential to affect overall cognitive abilities later on in life.

Carson Simpson Mrs. Gallos English 3 Honors 24 April 2017 Concussions in Football Although football is a very popular sport, changes need to be made. There is a lot of research and data showing head injuries in football and how they hurt the players. The NFL tries to just sweep these cases away because they know it would hurt the popularity and economical support of the sport. Head injuries and concussions are the most popular injuries in football because of the fact that they are one of the most dangerous injuries a player could have.

Every person in the world loves football! Football has the highest rates of catastrophic head injuries (16).The long term health effects of high impact sport injures can be super dangerous. “Medical researchers at Boston University recently confirmed that 88 of 92 former NFL players donated their brains for research…”(15). “... NFL players who donate their brains for research suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy( C.T.E.), a brain disease induced by repetitive head trauma and linked to depression,aggression,impulse-control problems,memory loss, and dementia”(15).

People believe that concussions and deaths are the results of football, but the good outweighs the bad and the concussions can be prevented Football should not be banned because it keeps kids off the streets and into the classroom. In Michael Lewis’s “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game,” a homeless boy is given a second chance by getting the opportunity to play football in high school. This heartwarming story about a teenager, Michael Oher, proves that football and other

I punched in an adequately vague search term (football injury) and was directed to League of Denial, a book exploring the link between the NFL and brain damage. I expected it would feed my initial premise, and that I would use it as evidence of football’s mental toll. But, as I skimmed through the chapters, I

With a growing epidemic of concussions we should spend more time studying concussions and get better protection in the sports we play. There should be more safety requirements, concussion protocols, and better education on concussions. Many people overlook concussions when looking over someone because they don’t fully know about concussions. According to Dr. Steven Rothman, America has been exaggerating concussions and treating injuries with caution (Koppelman).

Omalu had innocently believed that the NFL would offer a positive reception to his study that exposed the dangers posed upon football participants’ mental health. Contrary to his expectations, the NFL demanded for an extraction of the article from 2005’s July issue of Neurosurgery. Three editors from the NFL’s committee for Mild Brain Injury wrote about serious flaws they had come across in his research. Other people who had been affected apart from Webster were the likes of Terry Long. After the first report denial by NFL, Omalu pushed forward with a second brain examination on Terry Long who had showed signs of distressing behavior after his immediate retirement.