Concussion Effects In Football

Safety and equipment have come a long way in football in order to prevent brain injuries. A very important piece of equipment used to prevent brain trauma is the helmet. The helmet has evolved a lot over the years, even more in the past decade. The Helmets main purpose use to be just to stop skull fractures, then they added the facemask to prevent facial injuries. Concussions are more of a recent concern (Hand 1). Overconfidence in the helmets' protective power prompts many NFL athletes to deliver and accept hits that would have killed players of previous generations. Now the helmet is being revolutionized. Helmets aren't only being created to stop skull and face fractures but they are being created to help prevent brain damage such as concussions now. Helmets have gone through testing to see how to design a better preventative helmet. These newer helmets are being designed to reduce the amount of force that is being applied to the head by a hit that is received (Vandantam 2). Virginia Tech football has been monitoring helmet collisions since 2003, courtesy of Dr. Gunnar Brolinson. Dr. Gunnar Brolinson has outfitted the teams helmets with six sensors and a small antenna that records and transmits data to a computer on the sideline. This information collected is crucial because it will help find better ways to design a helmet that will prevent concussions(Goldman 1). Equipment isn't the only important part of football that can help prevent concussions.

In 2015 28% of injuries occurred to the head or face, including concussions. High school injuries are so high because most people are just learning and don’t understand the right way to tackle so they lead with their head. High school athletes account for an estimated 2 million injuries and 500,000 doctor visits and 30,000 hospitalizations each year (Mills 2016).What Highschool started to use was the ZERO1 helmet. It has four core layers. The layers are (outside-In) Lode shell, Core layer, Arch shell, and form linear. The hard shell is the most important because it allows the helmet to not collapse when the player hits the ground (“The Safest Helmet in Football Is Set to Make Its NFL Debut"). The helmet stays straight, and the padding gives the player cushion when tackled.

There’s no doubt that concussions in football has become a major problem, not just for the professional athletes, but for kids of all ages from age 8 to 19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shown that concussion have doubled in the last decade and The American Academy of Pediatrics says that, “emergency room visits for concussions in children ages 8 to 13 years old has doubled, and concussions have risen 200 percent among teens ages 14 to 19 in the last decade” (Keith Dunlap, The Oakland Press). This shows that the seriousness of concussions is not just an issue at a pro level but an issue throughout all levels of play. The risk is definitely present when you play football but it shouldn’t stop parents from letting their children participate in the sport. Playing organized sports such as football isn’t just a place to get injured, it’s a place where your children can learn the importance of teamwork, sportsmanship, toughness, competitiveness, they learn succeed, and also they learn about failure. The parents who don’t allow their children to play sports don’t let their kids learn about these important lessons of organized sports. Football is also a way for kids to take their anger and struggles out in the game and help them express themselves. It can also be a way for kids in bad situations to get a way out, to try and reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Most people either don’t know or don’t care to know about football helmets. It is something that you have to enjoy knowing and learning about. Each helmet has something different and different way they try to make it comfortable and safe for the player to wear. The history of each brand has a history on how they came up with the idea of making their style of helmet. No matter where the football game is being played, there are multiple helmets being worn at one time, which include Riddell, Schutt, Xenith, Vicis and SGH.

Concussions occur on a large scale in football. During a concussion, the head can experience a blow directly or can have whiplash. When the head is hit, the brain hits the inside of the skull, giving it a temporary bruise. This bruise or tearing of the brain can lead to mental impairments that can affect a person’s emotional state of being, physical problems like deteriorated mobility and sensitivity to light and sound. Doctors are quick to point out one of the major reasons that youth receive concussions, saying, “... children have big heads relative to the rest of their bodies and weak necks… that elevates the risk of concussions,” (P6). Along with a lack of education and care for the protection of athletes, youth are already at a huge risk. When children wear their football helmets, they are saving themselves from many injuries that could have occurred without them, most especially protecting the brain. But, in many cases, this is not enough.

The issue of multiple concussions is finally becoming recognized by major sports. The awareness has led to a variety of interventions to help protect athletes. There have been two recent interventions concerning football helmets. First off, Riddell, a company that produces football helmets, has released a new helmet that is supposed to best prevent concussions. This helmet is known as the Revolution Speed. Using advanced technology, the Speed helmets were designed around the head 's center of gravity and include an uneven outer shell to help absorb a hit. The inside of the

Helmets are a major guideline that needs to be improved because a helmet is there to protect the head and prevent concussions but it doesn't seem to be doing a good job. Now there's always that question of “why don't we just make the helmet better and more equipped to prevent concussions?”, well we've had football around for years now and if it hasn't been done yet I don't think it will ever be done. According to the North Eastern Undergraduate Writing Journal, since the 1970s, helmets have been made with a polycarbonate shell, a steel face mask, and padding which is just foam and inflatable air bladders. Even though modern helmets maybe more

In the 2015 season there were 271 total concussions; a fifty-eight percent rise from the 2014 season (Seifert, esnp.go.com). Of the 271 concussions, ninety-two of them were caused by helmet-to-helmet contact (Seifert). Dr. Michael C. Miller, former editor of the "Harvard Mental Health Letter" believes the NFL has taken steps in the right direction but more needs to be done in order to protect future players and preserve the heart of the game. Helmets with better padding and impact monitors cut the risk of sustaining a concussion in half. A group of researchers collected data from 1,800 athletes from eight different college football teams using two versions of a helmet made by Riddell, the "VSR4" and the new "Revolution". Using sensors in the helmet, they recorded hits experienced by players and found a fifty-four percent reduction of concussion risk in the players with the Revolution helmet. (Newsmax Health). Dan Polnerow, a journalist at Northeastern State University, wrote that Riddell’s new helmet “utilizes high density vinyl nitrile foam, a facemask designed to absorb some of the energy of the impact, and a larger shell to fit more padding” (Polnerow). No helmet can completely protect an athlete from a concussion however providing better protection can substantially reduce the risk

This falls mainly on the defensive player, the player that is delivering the hit. When playing football everything happens in a flash. You have only a few seconds to react to everything going on. The defensive of player goal is to prevent the other team from scoring at all means possible. If they can’t break up a pass before a receiver grabs the ball the only other option is delivering a blow to the receiver to stop him from gaining more yards. In the result of this he may launch himself at the receiver and make contact in the upper head area. In football this would be considered a defenseless receiver depending on the case but it is still hard when playing at full speed to determine this. This also takes away from the physical aspect of the game having to think where and how hard you can hit someone when running 16-20 miles per hour and weigh 200 or more pounds. Some players jump off the ground with over a thousand pounds of force meaning if they jump off the ground into another player it will cause some serious pain. This is just player playing and it’s kind of

Football can be a very dangerous sport. And although those who play the game believe that they are being protected by the helmets that they wear, the truth is that this may not be the case. In a recent study released by the American Academy of Neurology it has been found that “protection against concussion and complications of brain injury is especially important for young players, including elementary and middle school, high school and college athletes, whose still-developing brains are more susceptible to the lasting effects of trauma”(Science Daily, 2014). The study also found that standard football helmets worn by the majority of players on the field today, only reduce the risk of traumatic brain injury by 20 percent compared to not wearing a helmet at all (Science Daily, 2014).

Have you ever wondered how much damage the brain suffers during and after a football players playing career? All throughout history there have been cases of serious head trauma in a series of sports besides football such as boxing, soccer, baseball and hockey. Since football is a more contact sport than others there’s a spike of head injuries in that field of sports. To really understand how to make football helmets safer and more efficient, you must understand how effective they are right now, their history, and comparing how much damage they can resist comparing to other head injuries. Football in our youths and professional programs have caused a lot of controversy. For younger individuals, many people wonder if it is a safe sport to play

The creation of the Head Impact Telemetry System (HIT) and Star System offered ways to measure helmets in the level of protectiveness. Despite its capability of measuring linear acceleration and impact location, the HIT system is unable to measure angular acceleration accurately(2). Scholars state rotational and linear is not suitable in predicting concussions(5).With that, future innovation and improvement will provide better insight in understanding these test and concussions(1). Still,Regardless of the effectiveness of the product, helmets will never be perfect in preventing injuries(1).

American football has been around for over one hundred years, and along with the sport has been the need to provide proper safety for the players. An assortment of padding has been instituted in the game that protects against most blunt trauma including blows to the shoulders, mid section, and legs. In an attempt to prevent fracture of the skull, helmets were designed. However, studies have shown that helmets do little to nothing to prevent concussive damage to the brain. A polycarbonate shell is used as the outer housing for regulation football helmets, but along with this material, the materials used on the inside of the helmet are just as, if not more, important. The purpose of this report is to analyze the materials used in current football helmet design and the improvements being made in the field of materials science in order to combat the severe number of concussions suffered by NFL players.

I have been studying the effects of protective headgear and their ability to prevent head injuries. Attached is my report, “Effects of Protective Headgear on Subsequent Concussions.”

There are also other types of helmets being developed that have different types of add-ons proven to help reduce the force from hits (Salvaterra). He also describes how the ideal headgear to prevent concussions would have features like a retention system to keep the helmet in place and a shell hard enough to stop a penetrating force (Salvaterra). This is showing how we currently have