By: Malcolm Shields
Bone-crushing hits and physical play have become the hallmark images that have propelled the sport of football into a national obsession. The collisions are what keep athletes and fans attracted to the game.
With those collisions comes a price. For many players, from youth football leagues to the professional ranks, sustaining a concussion has been one of the side-effects of the physical game of football.
According to the Mayo Clinic, a concussion is a traumatic brain injury that alters the way your brain functions. Effects are usually temporary, but can include problems with headaches, concentration, memory, judgment, balance and coordination. Most concussions occur via a blow to the head or to the upper body.
Other symptoms that develop from sustaining a concussion are feelings of pressure in the head, loss of consciousness, confusion, amnesia, feeling dizzy or seeing “stars,” ringing of the ears, slurred speech and fatigue. The long-term effects of concussions could also develop into a condition that is similar to dementia. It is known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy or C.T.E.
Dr. Raphael Wald is a licensed psychologist in Boca Raton for the Palm Beach Neuropsychology Associates. In the male dominated world of football, Dr. Wald acknowledged that it is difficult for participants to acknowledge that they sustained a concussion.
“Especially in sports, there has been an expectation that you are going to play through injuries. That included head injuries,” Dr. Wald said. “Even today’s athletes want to pretend that nothing is wrong very frequently so that [the] coach won’t take them out of the game because they might lose their opportunity.” When an athlete does sustain a concussion or a sub-concussion, Dr. Wald suggests that the player should be removed from the game immediately.
Sub-concussions are blows to the head that do not present clinical symptoms of a concussion. The accumulation of those hits also leads to C.T.E. If the brain sustains a second concussion before healing from the initial concussion, it could lead the brain cell to die.
Football players in high school are one of the most at-risk segments of the participating population, which consists of 5 million players in all levels of football, who are susceptible to having a concussion.
In a 2009 study by the Journal of Athletic Injury, between 43,000 to 67,000 of the estimated 1.2 million participants in high school football sustained a concussion
“It is the most prevalent issue facing football today,” said Spanish River High football coach Rod Payne. His association with football spans over two decades as a player from Miami Killian High School to the NFL and as a coach with stops at the high school level and collegiately at FAU.
What are the solutions to curtail the number of concussions in high school football?
“Education is [the] key in understanding how technique is going to make a difference from big hits and trying to stay away from helmet-to-helmet contact,” Payne said. “That technique comes from tried and true basics of football tackling. It’s never been the dive and hit. It’s been the wrap up, head to the side and tackle, facemask first.”
Dr. Wald has seen a shift in awareness on concussions by those who are affiliated with the game. “I think that as more and more professional athletes have come out and discussed how their experiences of severe depression or severe neurological or psychological symptoms related to head injuries,” Dr. Wald said, “over the course of the past, certainly, five to maybe 10 years, there has been a great deal more awareness about head injuries.”
Coaches and athletes have become aware of the signs of a concussion. “The culture has now changing to where the more we get people aware of [concussions], the more people are looking for [signs of concussions],” Payne said. “That is part of the reason why we have an increased incident rate.”
Training athletes to condition the upper body also lowers the chances of sustaining a concussion. “We know now through science and through training that training the neck and the traps and shoulder girdle to withstand the blow of impact is a huge safeguard in helping prevent concussions,” Payne said.
With the increased awareness of concussions, the days of coaches and athletes dismissing concussions as “getting their bell rung” have diminished. With the recent deaths of football players at all levels due to complications of long-term damage of concussions, early diagnosis and treatment of concussions have become paramount.