Football Injury Research Paper

Jillian Palma
Mr. P
English 9H
April 6, 2014
Football Injuries: My brother was affected by a football injury when he was in 6th grade. This was a big tragedy for my family and I. My brother broke one of the hardest bones to break in your body, which is the femur bone. A kid that was more muscular then my brother tackled him in football, which was the reason his femur bone broke into two. By breaking the femur you can loose a lot of blood because it is such a big bone so it carries a significant amount of blood in it. When my brother broke his femur bone he had to have a surgery. In this surgery they put two metal rods to hold his bone together, which later got taken out. This femur injury that my brother had from football made my brother…show more content…
Most football players wont even realize when they have concussions. When a football player experiences a concussion they experience a temporary, trauma- induced an alteration in mental status (Tyler and Nelson 1). Also the player will hear a “bell-ringing” noise, which can cause lasting physical and mental injury, or even result in death (1). According to Tyler and Nelson, “Studies released by the American Academy of Neurology and the National Brain Injury Association indicate that 10% of college and 20% of high school football players receive brain injuries in any given season” (1). Many f these concussions are temporary, but if a player receives their first concussion are four times more likely to receive a second than someone who has never had one (1). There are different types of concussions. For example, one is called second impact syndrome (SIS) (1). The authors, Jeffery H, Tyler and Michael E. Nelson addresses that SIS occurs when an athlete suffers a small head injury and then returns to play too soon. Once he returns to play he gets hit again, before being fully healed (1). There can be many effects from SIS, such as physical paralysis, mental disabilities, and epilepsy (Tyler and Nelson 2). SIS seems to occur mostly in teenagers because they usually don’t report their injuries or they rush to go back playing (2). Tyler and Nelson states a grade I concussion consist of having no loss of…show more content…
The spinal cord carries messages between the brain and muscles through a network of nerve cells, so if an injury in the spinal cord occurs it is one of the most complicated traumas (Gridiron Heroes 1). An injury that happens in the spinal cord affects the whole system because there is signals that are in the spine that pass from the brain to the rest of the body that are being affected (1). The result of this injury is paralysis of muscles, interferes with blood pressure, body temperature, regulation, sensation, bowel and bladder function, and fertility (1). Another type of spine injury is the C- spine injury, which are estimated to occur in 10-15 percent of all football players. Most commonly in linemen and defensive players (Sama 1). The cause of this injury is usually when two players are tackling each other at a high-speed headfirst. The acceleration of head on the neck causes a whiplash (1). One tackling method of football that is now banned, spearing was a significant cause of a C- spine injury. This is because this method involved a player using his head as the first point of contact with another player (1). Not only is spine injuries a cause of taking the player out of football for a while, but it can also be life