Sports Head Injuries

A Study Shows that Sports Head Injuries are more Common than you would Think

There is that scene in that old movie Jerry Maguire where Cuba Gooding Jr. gets knocked out cold during a particularly aggressive professional football maneuver in the arena, and everyone goes through some breathless minutes seeing if he will move again. This year\'s Super Bowl just went by, and professional football events will happen around the year; but about the last thing that anyone seems to think about in the same context as the Super Bowl, is how much of a possibility it is in professional football that an athlete will suffer a sports head injury. Well, someone\'s paying attention. The American Medical Association\'s professional magazine put out a report nearly a century ago that claimed that even a single football style blow to the head, through a helmet can cause what they call concussion hemorrhages. That was written a century ago, and only now have there been Congressional hearings into what happens long-term athletes, professional or amateur, who get head butted and the like.

And apparently there is a lot that happens. Athletes end up with uncontrollable anger problems, with walking in an uncoordinated fashion, and with finding it hard to do elementary reasoning. In fact, the all-macho NFL is issuing new rules this coming season to make sure that players who have had sports head injuries before, don\'t come back to tempt fate again. They certainly take the \"better late than never\" adage seriously at the NFL, don\'t they? They certainly hate to do this; they only announced this two months ago, and already their brain injury specialist, is taking it back and telling Congress that the evidence is nothing more than anecdotal.

But why go on research done by the medical association nearly a century ago? Apparently, the kind of research they did on damaged brains back then was so thorough, so complete, that there was no was no need ever to question what they did. The research took in 300 athletes, from boxing and football, who had died of sports head injuries. They also looked at a couple of dozen retired boxers whom anybody would call punchdrunk. They did not walk properly, they did not talk properly, and they certainly did not think properly. It looks like they were coming down with Alzheimer\'s. A couple were even blind, nearly. Why, we do know what happened to Mohammed Ali, don\'t we? Apparently, what happened to him was no exceptional affliction.

When a person takes a hit to the head, the brain knocks against the skull with ample force. The rubbery organ sometimes leaves a little too, and scars over. That kind of scar, gives you Alzheimer\'s and Parkinson\'s. In fact, NFL players more often than not, die before they hit 50. When they autopsied these four players, they found dark scar tissue in their brains, similar to what they see in Alzheimer\'s patients. No one can be jolted into action the way those autopsy doctors can, actually seeing the damage with their own eyes. Sports head injuries are about real people, dying pathetically an undignified way. In a few years, all contact sports could carry a federal warning.