More should be done to protect athletes from head injuries

By Brandon Eastman and Calvin Connors Posted October 20, 2010

FACTS

  • There are an estimated 250,000 concussions every year in football.
  • Head-related deaths accounted for 69% of football fatalities.
  • Recent statistics suggest that approximately 300,000 sport-related traumatic brain injuries occur annually in the United States.
  • From 1984 to 1999, there were 63 high school and 6 collegiate catastrophic head injuries.
  • Cheerleading accounted for more than 50% of catastrophic injuries to female participants over the past 17 years.
  • A football-related fatality has occurred every year from 1945 through 1999, except for 1990.
  • From 1982 through 1999, 20 deaths and 19 permanent disability injuries occurred in a variety of sports.
    (www.ncbi.nih.gov)

On April 26, 21-year-old, University of Pennsylvania defensive lineman Owen Thomas killed himself. He left no note, and was found with only his cell phone on him at the time

With the parents’ consent, researchers at Boston University took the task to study Thomas’s brain. The researchers found that his brain showed early signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE. Symptoms of this “disease of the moment” are; depression, erratic behavior, and eventually dementia.

A recent study by this same Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy revealed that many former NFL players had CTE. Many of these CTE victims had a history of multiple concussions. All this means years of taking less than concussive hits can eventually add up to cause severe brain damage.

“Concussions have been getting worse and worse over the years,” said senior quarterback Mitch Pollock.

Players around the country at all levels of competition have experienced this at some point, and, in time, it is bound to catch up with them if something is not done to prevent it.

“Everybody is hitting harder and everybody is leading with their head more,” said senior lineman Will Thacker.

A new football helmet will be introduced with a new technology that is supposed to provide extra protection against concussions. A group of researchers has spent the last four years trying to perfect this new helmet, and it is finally ready. The new helmets will have extra protection on the sides of the head and around the jaw, which should help to lessen the impact when a player takes a hit.

“They have come out with new technology where it’s supposed to decrease head injuries and concussions,” said football coach and weight-training teacher Taua Cabatbat.

In order to monitor these hits that football players receive to the head every single day, some schools are implementing a “hit-count technology.” The Virginia Tech Hokies, and Dr. Gunnar Brolinson, were the very first to use this technology, which consists of small sensors placed on the inside of the helmets. These sensors send data to a small device on the sideline, and then the information of where the hit was taken and how impactful it was is displayed on a laptop.

This system, called the HIT system, is very expensive. It costs $1,000 for just one helmet, so there are not a lot of schools across the country that cannot afford it, Lowry is one of them. With the system being so expensive it is sporadically used throughout the country at just a handful of universities and high schools. This puts all the schools that cannot afford it at a major disadvantage because now they don’t have the same benefits as the rest. If concussions are really that big of a deal, this kind of protection should be provided for a lesser price, so every school across the nation is equally protected and concussions become less of a problem, not for specific schools, but for every school across the nation.

“I’ve seen so-called ‘increase in head injuries to players that’s just because the game is a little faster and kids get a little stronger,” said Cabatbat.

Concussions have been a topic that has been questioned for many years, and something must be done about them. This could be the answer we’ve all been waiting for.

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