Concussions and their Effects on the Body
Concussions are traumatic brain injuries resulting from player collisions, leading to severe head injuries and repetitive trauma. They occur as a result of traumatic head blows that cause the brain to scurry in a whiplash-like fashion in the head, causing the brain to bounce in the skull, stretching and damaging brain cells (Heintz et al., 2020). The damage causes chemical and physical damage to the brain, causing severe effects on the players. Concussions have short-term effects that last a few hours or days, and long-term effects cause problems primarily after six weeks. Short-term effects of concussions lead to headaches, partial loss of memory, and confusion in the event of a head-blow accident (Heintz et al., 2020). Additionally, the player may suffer from a delayed response to asked questions, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, light sensitivity, ringing in ears, sound sensitivity and feeling like the brain is in a fog.
Moreover, players can also encounter effects such as unsteady walking, listlessness, loss of balance, fatigue, changes in sleeping patterns and partial irritability. On the other hand, the long-term effects of concussions include exposure to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) which has been a significant cause of player deaths in the National Football League (Mack et al., 2021). CTE is found in players with a history of symptomatic concussions, leading to abnormal brain protein production. The proteins affect normal brain functioning, eventually damaging the nerve cells. Players like Ray Easterling, Andre Waters and Wike Webster in the NFL suffered from CTE, which implicated severe long-term mental and health complications (Mack et al., 2021). The health and mental issues included; trouble concentrating, impaired judgment, memory loss, anxiety, anger, depression, suicidality, impulse control issues and progressive dementia. Long-term effects, in most cases caused by accumulative impacts of concussions, if players do not take enough time to heal from brain injuries.
Example of Concussions in Miami Dolphins
A perfect example of this can be seen when the Cincinnati Bengals and Miami Dolphins had a football game, where the Bengals won. The game was full of highlight-reel moments that narrowed down to a severe concussion case involving Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (Jacobs, 2022). Tua left the football game on a stretcher after his head was slammed by Bengal’s left-back defense, Josh Tupou (Jacobs, 2022). Tua was taken to a nearby hospital after the severe brain injury, evident in the replay, which showed how he suffered from loss of balance, delayed response to questions and contorted fingers. According to the Dolphin teammates, Tua should not have taken part in the game, as he had suffered a similar hit against the Buffalos, where his head slammed again into the ground (Jacobs, 2022). During the Buffalo’s game, he got up and seemed to be well, compared to the Bengal’s game, where he lost balance, fell, wobbled, and shook his head.
The Dolphins referred to the accident as a reaggravated back injury despite Tua never reaching for his back. After being cleared by the Dolphin’s neurology physicians, he controversially entered the game after the previous accident in the Buffalo’s game. The case received a lot of backlash from neurologists, who claimed that the return of Tua to the game was a massive setback for concussion care in the American NFL (Jacobs, 2022). Coaches stated that players should be allowed to heal from brain injuries before returning to the pitch in the event of concussions. Additionally, many proponents in the NFL noted that caveats should be implicated to help protect players from suffering long-term effects, which are triggered by symptomatic short-term effects. Challenges in concussion protocol and rules have affected the ability of the NFL to make games safer for quarterback hits, affecting the return to play policy process, as injured players should not immediately return to games.
The Return to Play Policy Process for the NFL
The concussion incidents within the league lead to concerns about the policies in place guiding players and other stakeholders. Primarily, once an NFL player suffers from concussions due to head injuries, they should be taken off the pitch immediately to allow physicians to assess the head injury. The player can only get back to the game upon a thorough five-step evaluation assessment conducted by the team’s medical and neurology unit (Axson, 2022). Upon execution of the evaluation, the player cannot return to the game if the team physician diagnoses the player with gross motor instability caused by neurological changes in the brain cells. The first phase of the process is symptom-limited activity (Axson, 2022). In this phase, the football player is prescribed rest to minimize the activities that may aggravate the symptoms caused by the concussion. The player is also subjected to athletic supervision that limits stretching and extreme imbalances that may increase symptoms. The second phase of aerobic exercise introduces cardiovascular exercises that enable players to engage in dynamic stretching and balancing, reducing mild concussion symptoms.
The third phase is the football-specific exercise, where players continue with the cardiovascular exercises that may mimic specific sports activities, such as jumping, to enhance strength for both joints and muscles. The fourth phase is the non-contact training drills, where players get supervised as they continue with cardiovascular exercises to improve strength and balance. Also, players are introduced to non-contact activities based on specific team-based exercises (Axson, 2022). The Final phase is the total football activity and clearance, where players are cleared by the team’s medical unit in consultation with the neurological department. Independent neurological consultants also examine the players in consultation with the club’s physicians. If the player is fully termed as healed from the concussion, then the player is fit to return to the field gradually after severe and restricted training.
References
Axson, S. (2022). What is the NFL’s concussion protocol? Tua Tagovailoa’s injury puts policy in the spotlight. USA Today. Web.
Heintz, E. C., Foret, E. F., & Foreman, J. J. (2020). Effect of concussions on National Football League quarterback performance. International Journal of Kinesiology and Sports Science, 8(4), 19. Web.
Jacobs, M. (2022). The dolphins failed Tua Tagovailoa. Will any change come of it? The Guardian. Web.
Mack, C. D., Solomon, G., Covassin, T., Theodore, N., Cárdenas, J., & Sills, A. (2021). Epidemiology of concussion in the National Football League, 2015-2019. Sports Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach, 13(5), 423–430. Web.