Football Season = Head Injuries… and What to Do About Them

September 9, 2015

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Today we want to talk about football…

This may surprise some of you as we don’t always discuss sports at a personal injury law firm…

But football and personal injury actually have a lot in common!

We love football around here at Zanes Law and football season is just around the corner…

GOOO WILDCATS!

It’s not just college and professional football that is starting but also high school, pop warner and other football leagues across your town.

And although football brings so much fun to towns, families and even brings whole states together…

It also has a not so fun side to it… severe head injuries.

Head injuries have been a major problem for the highest level of football – that is the NFL…

But the issue of actually bringing head injuries to the forefront and discussing the significant long term ramifications of them was not brought into focus until about five years ago…

The NFL definitely did its best to deny that there was problem… that is until a class action lawsuit was brought forth by five thousand retired players who had suffered extreme head injuries and we ultimately not treated during their time as players.

Okay so what does this have to do with enjoying the football season?

Well…after the class action lawsuit, the NFL was forced to implement stringent regulations on when players could play pre season and during the season (if at all unless it was an actual game)…

Here’s why this is important for you – just as professional and college is starting so are the kids leagues but the difference is there isn’t the same regulations.

In fact, some of these young players are practicing every single day, including game day which is either resulting in massive blows to the head or small, repetitive hits to the head that could be far more dangerous.

What exactly is going on in the brain when these blows occur?

A whole research department is dedicated to brain trauma and injury at Boston University both because of the complexity of the brain itself and the increased complexity that occurs once the delicate brain has been injured.

Recent studies show alarming signs of what is known to be CTE or Encephalopathy in young players of contact sports as young as 18 years old…

This is alarming because CTE reveals itself often in those that are developing or have developed dementia…which are *normally* people approaching their 70s…

Do you see why this can become devastating?

Now, we are just scratching the surface of this research for the sake of the post…

But we urge every single parent who is thinking about placing their young children into contact sports including football, hockey, MMA, rugby, boxing  etc to really do their research into this matter…

Head injuries can change and even take away the quality of life for adult forever… for a child’s brain, it can hinder mental and physical growth to a severe level.

As parents we want our children to experience the love of playing sports that we had growing up…

We want to them to be on a team, run around and get their blood pumping and ultimately make friends…

And we want them to have that same excitement and nostalgia around this time of the year…

But here at Zanes Law, we also want you to be a little more informed than you were last season…

We love our community and even more, we love the kids that are in our community growing up, playing ball and even learning some life lessons from it…

Just make sure that your kids are playing in the safest way possible by protecting their brain and ultimately their life.

Click here to listen to Doug’s podcast about head injuries in athletes. 

For more information CTE and other research, please visit the following links:

*Boston University School of Medicine Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy

*Brain Injury Research Institute

*Brain Trauma to Affect One in Three Players, N.F.L. Agrees