One of the largest obstacles in concussion prevention and treatment is the culture surrounding many contact sports and the mindset of the athletes participating in these sports. Any injury that requires an athlete to miss time is a detriment to the athlete's personal or team goals. They can miss training time, or even worse, playing time in a game. Many people will often leave injuries undiagnosed and self-treat them. This mindset will even spill over to head injuries. Often to and athlete the risk of shaking it off seems minimal. Athletes are often concerned about missing time or harming their teams performance. The issue is that athletes treat head trauma with this mindset. If a concussion is not properly healed and another concussion is suffered then an athlete can experience immediate and permanent brain damage or even death. We've come along way in concussion education but far too often concussions are thought of as minor injuries. This mindset will lead athletes to continuously leave concussions unreported. Keith Olbermann discusses media portrayal of concussions below.
Concussions have gained a lot of notoriety in recent years especially in the sport of football. We have come a long way for diagnosing severe concussions as having your "bell rung". Now a lot more is understood about brain trauma and the long term impact. Many of the main producers of football helmets have been scrambling to make a "concussion proof" helmet. Unfortunately a concussion proof helmet will probably never be produced, but large strides have been made in helmet safety. Now that we understand the implications of concussions athletes with them are being treated much differently. Sports illustrated writes about how athletes with previous concussions can be treated as damaged goods. http://mmqb.si.com/2013/10/24/nfl-draft-concussions-jahvid-best/
Knee injuries are a growing concern as more and more athletes are suffering severe knee injuries. One of the most common knee injuries is a torn ACL. Many people including myself believe that the increase in knee injuries is caused by athletes becoming more explosive. More stress is being placed on the knee as athletes become bigger and stronger. I'm interested to see if an athlete could train their ligaments to counteract this growing force. Im also interested to see if an athlete's gear can have an impact on injuries. Some feel that minimalistic footwear is causing for stress on knee ligaments, and some feel knee braces are truly a placebo and do little to prevent or help knee trauma.
Often its been said that pitching many innings at a young age will contribute to needing UCL reconstruction surgery. There has been no direct correlation revealed yet but I feel it contributes. I feel the biggest factor playing into the increase in UCL injuries is not the workload but the habits developed at young ages. Far too often pitchers develop the habit of throwing with their upper bodies instead of driving with their legs, hips and core. This may cause a whip like effect in the elbow generating large amounts of force in the elbow and specifically on the UCL. I would work to test whether or not I am correct. If I am correct I would look into educating local coaches on the risks associated with improper form.
My name is Evan Abatiell. I am currently a senior at Rutland High School. I will be working on a stem capstone project for the remainder of the semester. I will be working with our schools athletic trainer Tyler White on debunking the myths of Tommy John surgery and researching ways to prevent further injuries.
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