Eps 1648: The Danger of Contact Sports
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Crystal Barnes
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One of the more common injuries seen in sports is chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a condition seen mostly in soccer players. When repeated injuries occur to the brain, these individuals are at high risk for developing something called chronic traumatic encephalopathy . Many articles show the risk of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy is doubled after only three years of playing pro football, and CTE results are often fatal.
Looking at sports such as football through that lens, it is easy to understand why so many athletes are developing CTE, and why most are unaware of the consequences. High-impact sports, like football, football, boxing, and hockey, may all contribute to CTE. Although certain protective equipment has been created for sports, such as soccer and hockey, players are still vulnerable to developing CTE.
Regardless, CTE is the primary risk associated with contact sports, and the fundamental lack of adequate cranial protection has been identified as the primary reason that so many brain injuries happen during sports. Contact sports are a dangerous sport due to their high likelihood of injuries and the risk of brain damage, which is why children younger than 18 should not play them. The injury risk is even higher if children are playing contact sports like basketball, soccer, or soccer.
Children are at greater risk for sports injuries than adults, as they are still growing and developing. Each year, over 2.6 million kids, 19 years old or younger, go to the emergency room with injuries related to recreation as well as sports. Studies indicate that approximately 130,000 children younger than age 18 suffer sports-related head injuries annually.
Basketball is responsible for the highest rate of injuries in high schools than any other sport, including both football and soccer. While it is true that football is the sport associated with the highest numbers of brain injuries, it is also the sport with the highest participation. Despite an increased awareness about brain injuries in high-contact sports such as football, record number of concussions during the 2017 season of the National Football League has increased.
There is a large variation in research literature regarding the injury rates across sports, but football does not stand alone as a sport involving a substantial risk for brain injury. Head injuries during sports typically occur as the result of being hit in the head by another player, ground, or an object. Any sport where the head is exposed to direct contact, collision, impact from the ground, or contact with the body of another player, has a chance to cause a concussion.
Physical contact between players can come in many forms, and certain sports have seen significantly higher levels of head-involved collisions and impacts. Cumulative damage to brains from sports participation is most commonly associated with boxing, but this type of injury can occur in other sports involving repeated large or small hits to the head, including football and horse racing. When injuries are severe, the brain may experience lasting damage to several areas, which may severely disrupt brain function, potentially leading to memory loss and, in some cases, death.
In this type of situation, even a small impact may result in Second Impact Syndrome, which may result in swelling of the brain, damage to the brain, or even death. If the head trauma occurs during sports, it can break up brain cell structures, much as earthquakes cause tall buildings to collapse. The point is, virtually any sport where the athletes, and/or objects around them, are in motion involves the risk of sustaining a head injury - no matter what the safety equipment, since a concussion is most obviously an injury caused by powerful forces of movement placed upon brain neuronal fibers.
Sports and leisure activities are some of the leading causes of concussion because of their aggression in execution. Among sports that pose the highest risks are soccer, soccer, lacrosse, baseball, ice hockey, and boxing . Although also a contact sport, soccer does not experience the level of contact and large hits as soccer does.
Contact sports such as soccer, football, boxing, and even domestic violence and blast waves can potentially cause greater brain injury to a person than expected, even after all the early symptoms of the injury have gone away . Studies link youth contact soccer to lasting damage to the brain later in life, with children as young as 12 years old playing tackle soccer having an increased likelihood to suffer from behavior and cognitive impairments from the trauma. With the growing body of evidence linking repeated head injury to lasting cognitive damage, many parents are steering their children away from high-impact sports like soccer and towards those considered less risky.
Dr. Bennett Omalu -- a forensic pathologist played by Will Smith in 2015s "Concussion" -- recently warned parents to keep their children out of high-impact contact sports like soccer or hockey until they are 18, out of concern about lasting health effects. In the second study, cognitive function was examined among amateur football players to try and understand whether concussions and other, less severe hits to the head can cause traumatic brain injuries over time, with resulting problems performing cognitive tasks.
Typically, though, people involved in contact sports happily admit there can be consequences, and some sports have all sorts of rules and regulations to try and prevent major injuries. In this light, if you choose to participate in any of the elite sports, the likelihood is that you will suffer the occasional fracture, or even serious injury, but concerns about players safety should not ruin the game in any way.