As a student athlete in both middle and high school, I’ve had my fair share of injuries. I’ve had a dislocated patella, sprained ankle, back sprain and concussions.  In high school, I suffered from three concussions playing varsity basketball with each concussion affecting me in an unusual way. With the first concussion. I experienced sensitivity to light, dizziness and migraines. With the second concussion, I suffered memory loss and my migraines became worse. To this day, I still suffer from painful migraines that leave me somewhat debilitated and unable to function. I felt this topic was important to write about because I currently have a cousin who plays Pop Warner football and recently had a concussion scare. It made me wonder, for the parents who allow their child to play football at such an early age for the Pop Warner organization, how important it is to make sound decisions for their child when it comes to their health. Concussions are taken very lightly when it comes to the youth. For example, one day during football practice, he was involved in an incident where he got head-butted during a play. His father expected him to dust the hurt off and get back on the field and play. Thankfully, his mother understands the seriousness of a head injury and insisted on taking him to the hospital to be examined for a concussion.  He didn’t have a concussion, but it was a scary and painful experience for him. With the long term affects a concussion can have on a person it’s important for me to share my concern for my cousin’s safety and others his age. This paper is for parents and coaches like my uncle who believe injuries like this are not detrimental to their child.

Concussion rates vary widely across youth sports, with the greatest injury risk in higher-contact games like rugby, hockey and football, a new research review finds (Rapaport, 2015). Concussions are said to be life threatening, but do parents take it as serious as they should? Statistical data shows that the concussion rate was about 18 times higher than average for rugby, five times greater for hockey, and roughly double for American football (Rapaport, 2015). A concussion is a traumatic brain injury that affect the way your brain functions. Concussions are often caused by a hard collision. Even though concussions aren’t as common in youth sports than in collegiate or professional sports, it is important that parents know the severity and affects concussions have on children. Some of the symptoms are dizziness, fatigue, migraines, sensitivity to light, balance problems, confusion, amnesia etc. Concussions are more life threatening to children because, depending on their age the brain may not be fully developed, and the child may be at risk of having a long-term brain injury.

There are many symptoms associated with concussions that range from dizziness and fatigue to migraines, sensitivity to light, balance problems and confusion. To the uninformed parent, these symptoms would probably be brushed off and the child would be dismissed to return to the field to play. But, what if it happens repeatedly? At what point does that parent stop and consider their child’s well being? Author and editor of First Opinion Patrick Skerrett wrote an article entitled, “How Many Concussions Are Too Many for an Active Athletic?” he shared how he worked with different experts in this article to get opinions on how many concussions they thought were too many for an athlete. 

The experts he used came from different medical backgrounds and had extensive experience with concussion injuries.  Micky Collins, who is the clinical director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Sports Medicine Concussions Program, William Meehan directs the Micheli Center for sports injury prevention in Waltham, Massachusetts, and Chris Koutures who is a pediatrician and sports medicine specialist and the team physician for the US Men’s and Women’s National Volleyball Teams. 

The experts expressed how concussions were dismissed in the old days and thought to have short term affects. They gave insight on the present and how severe they are, and the long term affects it has on the brain. However, they each had uniquely different outlooks on determining what was best for an athlete who experienced re-occurring concussions. Micky Collins believes, that the pre-existing conditions affecting concussion severity and rehab, determines whether an athlete who has sustained more than one concussion should continue in sports. Micky believed, that the cutoff point for concussions shouldn’t be based on the number of concussions a player receives because not every situation is the same. William Meehan believes, the athletes goals must be considered in the decisions of determining whether the player should keep playing. The difference between Meehan and Collins is that, Meehan believes in the numbers. Chris Koutures believes in healing time and that athletes should go through an individualized process to determine if the athlete should return to play. So as you can see every doctor and expert has their own opinion of when they believe the cutoff time for concussions are.  Weill Cornell Medicine Concussion and Brain Injury Clinic also believes in the numbers.  They discussed how almost 500,000 children visit an emergency room for traumatic brain injuries a year. Children are easily led to concussions more than adults are because their brains are not fully developed. Doctors normally say that three concussions should be the cut off time for sports, but makes it clear that there is no evidence to support this suggestion.  It’s just what most doctors recommend for the sake of the athlete. 

Researchers argue that parents and coaches avoid the question because their focus is seeing their child succeed in a sport that could possibly bring scholarship opportunities to attend college or fame, money, and notoriety in the NFL.  Being that football has the highest concussion rate out of all youth and high school sports, parents need to stop and ask the right questions for the safety of their child. Sports policy director and author Ken Reed believes, that parents should ask the question, “Am I voluntarily putting my child at risk by allowing him to play football or any other type of sport?”  Also, 42% of high schools in the United States have athletic trainers and most times they cannot attend all the games or practices, which is very dangerous because there is no professional help around to assess certain injuries. Parents and coaches need to understand that the brains of the youth and high school players are still developing, which means they are more likely to suffer from a brain injury. Robert Cantu, a neurosurgeon and leading expert on concussions, recommends that parents hold their children out of contact sports until they’re at least 16-18 years old.

On the other hand, cognitive neurologist Harry Kerasidis believes that parents and coaches should ask when is a hit to the head one too many? He brought light to the two commonly made arguments. Which are that contact is just a part of the game and not that serious, and head injuries aren’t worth the life changing affects and should be taken seriously. He also gives us the concussion repercussion risks that parent should consider. For example, since youth and collegiate athlete’s brains are still developing, a concussion can lead to greater damage and risk to cognitive impairment. Players who receive more than three concussions are more likely to have long term effects and emotional struggles. Bob Tedeschi agrees with Kerasidis, he believes that trauma in kids who play football before the age of twelve are more likely to suffer from depression and other behavioral problems later in life. He argues that if children play sports before their brain is developed they will suffer from behavioral issues in their adult life. An estimated 50 million Americans suffer from disorders of the brain or nervous system, which is a pretty good-sized chunk of the 317 million population. Some brain disorders are influenced by genetics, some are environmental, others from spinal cord or brain injury; and some result from a combination of any or all of these factors (Kerasidis,2014). Parents and coaches should take these few things into consideration before putting their child at risk or after the child has already sustained a head injury.

Author of the book Concussions and Our Kids: America's Leading Expert on How to Protect Young Athletes and Keep Sports Safe, Robert Cantu, agrees with the questions Harry Kerasidis believed parents should take into consideration. He recommends that children be tested before they begin a sport. Coaches should look for signs and know how to treat the athlete and parents should be more involved in having a say so in what goes on with their child’s health. Sometimes parents depend too much on trainers. Parents need to remember they have the last say so and no one knows what’s best for their child more than them. 

 In conclusion, there is still much debate as to whether it should be the parent’s decision or the doctor’s decision. Experts Collins, Meehan, and Koutures helped me to understand why they can’t conclude right now because there are so many different theories. Each expert had their own opinion on what they think is the right time to call its quits. But, until they can prove why three concussions should end the career, parents and coaches will form their own opinion and the athlete may never be fully treated. Most doctors and experts believe that the number of concussion do matter, not the recovery time. Three concussions should be the limit because the fourth could lead to death or permanent damage. The brain is very sensitive and should be treated and cared for carefully.
