Background

I have been playing schoolyard football my whole life and received my first concussion on the playground in 5th grade. After being escorted via ambulance to the hospital that day, I would not be aloud to play football until 8th grade.Things were going well, until my sophomore year, during a period of hitting drills and conditioning known as hell week, I sustained another concussion. It was not nearly as bad as the one as the one from the playground, but I still sat out the next two weeks including our first scrimmage. It was then our first game, my first game back and, in the 3rd quarter, I sustained another concussion after a helmet to helmet collision making the tackle on the running back. This time my body collapsed and I momentarily lost eye sight as I briefly lay motionless on the field. I got up and did what I thought was right, play the next play. Luckily, the next play did not go my way and I did not hit anybody. My teammates seeing that I was not right in the head, would not let me play anther play, so I ran to the sideline clearly upset.  This would prove to be the last time I ever ran back to the sidelines from a play; a career ending concussion.

After going to multiple physicians, sports doctors, neurologists, physical therapists, and countless trainers, I was diagnosed with PCS, Post Concussion Syndrome. My symptoms of headaches, sensitivity to light, mood swings, memory loss, focus issues, blurred vision, and irritability would prolong for about 14 months after the hit. I could not run or do anything physically exerting for about 8 of those months. Sports was my life, an athlete was who I was, so this would prove to be the most difficult part. During these months I had a lot of time to conduct my own research online on concussions and PCS. Although I would never play football again, it was an opportunity for me to educate my self on the topic. I had grown very interested not only in concussions and concussion prevention, but the sports medicine field as a whole. I consider my self very lucky to still have a cognitive brain. There are some out there who, especially while playing football, are not so lucky. I want to raise awareness to the seriousness of head injuries, and to educate others and myself to the repercussions of repeated head injuries in sports. We can save lives by simply being more aware to those players who MIGHT have a sustained a concussion.

Enough is Enough

The only thing more troubling than the hit Calvin Johnson took against the Minnesota Vikings on September 30th, is what happened on the sideline shortly after. The Detroit stud receiver had jumped to catch a pass thrown by Matt Stafford, but the pass was sailed to high, just missing Johnson's enormous wingspan. Johnson was still airborne when Chad Greenway of the Vikings hit in the face mask with the crown of his helmet; Ford Field went silent. When he returned to the sideline, he immediately fell to his knees and grabbed his head in obvious pain. Everybody and their mother in the stadium knew he was concussed and should stop playing, except the team trainers.

Calvin Johnson after the hit on September 30th

Calvin Johnson returned to play just a short 12 minutes later being down by 14 points against a divisional rival. He later stated to a local radio station, “It’s a part of football... You get concussed, you gotta keep on playing.” This mind state is something that we have to nip in the bud in not only professional sports, but college, high school, and your local youth team. Adults and kids alike think it is part of being tough to play with a concussion, this is the biggest taboo that needs to be eliminated. Being a football player, your always going to have to play hurt at one time or another, but it is a different situation to play injured. Sure your going to be hurting every game, everything from hands, arms, ribs, back, legs, and everything in between. But you only have one head with one brain; you do not ever want to play around with the limits of your brain. One more big hit on Calvin Johnson from that game and he could have been eating his meals through a tube for the rest of his life.

http://www.wired.com/playbook/2012/12/nfl-sideline-concussion-testing/

Post-Concussion Syndrom Related to Murder-Suicide

Jovan Belcher was signed as a free-agent out of University of Maine and despite the odds, worked his way up to start at middle Line-backer for the Kansas City Chiefs died on December 1, 2012, in a murder-suicide, killing his girlfriend, 22-year-old Kassandra Perkins, before driving to the Chiefs' training facility and killing himself. This is a crazy situation to say the least, and it poses serious questions. Is Belcher truly right in the head? And is there anything anybody could have done to prevent this incredibly tragic event from happening?
 A friend told the sports website Deadspin.com that Belcher suffered from short-term memory loss following a recent game against the Cincinnati Bengals on November 18th. Since 2011, at least five other NFL players have committed suicide, including Junior Seau, Dave Duerson, Kurt Crain, O.J Murdock, and Ray Easterling. Autopsies of Duerson, Easterling, and Seau found that both showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease caused by repeated blows to the head. This tragic story is just another example of the price NFL and other professional sports players pay.

http://www.consoleandhollawell.com/law-blog/is-concussion-related-head-trauma-to-blame-in-the-javon-belcher-case

Concussions Linked to Neurological Diseases

In this article, CNN Health discusses the resent findings that professional football players are three times more likely to have neuro-degenerative diseases than the general population. The authors of the study decided to look at the neurological outcomes of the players by specifically evaluating the autopsies of 334 players.

"We looked at all the death certificates, and Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and ALS had significant contribution to the death," according to Everett Lehman, one of the authors."When tallying those specific diseases, the authors found that among the 334 players, seven had died from Alzheimer's and another seven with ALS." I also found out something interesting that the average age of the players who had died was 57, compared to the male American average of 75 years.


http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/05/health/nfl-neurodegenerative-disease/index.html