Research Paper

Katie H.  

Mrs. Zurkowski

English 9 Greens

October 2, 2010

Sports Injuries

            Sports injuries are an epidemic that affects over 12 million kids per year. One third of all sports injuries occur with kids ages 14 or younger (Brown). These injuries may include sprains, broken bones, torn ligaments, facial injuries, and head injuries. This paper will examine more specifically, facial and head injuries and how these injuries can be prevented.

             Sports can result in brain injuries such as concussions and amnesia. Such head injuries can cause several different things to happen to the brain. Concussion result from blows to the head causing blurred vision, ringing of the ears, headaches, and swelling of the brain. Amnesia is a serious diagnosis than can change a person’s life. The term amnesia means the loss or injury of your memory (Amnesia). As Dr. Ahmed compares, “A broken leg is a broken leg, but the brain- it is different for everyone. A brain injury is a lifetime diagnosis.” Each year an estimated 1.5 million Americans suffer a traumatic brain injury. Getting a brain injury from sports could end one’s life of playing sports, or even their everyday life as they know it (Keller).

            Depending upon where the head is hit, different resulting brain injuries may occur. For example, localization and diffuse injury. In the United States, a traumatic brain injury happens at least every 21 seconds, making it the Number 1 cause of death and/or disability for people under the age of 44. Even though blows to different areas of the brain can result in different impairments-a concept known as localization- a brain injury anywhere affects the brain everywhere (Keller). As Dr. Jeff Frank points out, “Brain injury is unique, because it affects personhood.” In the type of brain injury called diffuse axonal injury, it affects the memory and other crucial cognitive functions of the brain (Keller). Some injuries happen because the equipment and training they use is not safe enough. Brain injuries are very dangerous, and they need to be better prevented in sports.

Other injuries, such as overuse injuries occur when an athlete has a driving force to win, and not necessarily because of poor equipment or training. Some kids play more dangerously because they feel invincible and powerful (Brown). Injuries will always be a part of sports, but there are ways to protect youth athletes and help them be safer. All sports can be very dangerous, but many sports organizations don’t have the proper safety policies in place to reduce or prevent such injuries. Dr. Lyle Micheli comments, “The lack of public awareness, the assumption that kids’ injuries just happen and can’t be prevented is simply ignorance.” This quote is completely true. People need to start realizing that they do need to change some things in sports to reduce the occurrence of injuries and make it safer for athletes.

Too many sports injuries happen because there is not enough safety policies and procedures to prevention them. Almost 4 million youth athletes each year are in the emergency room because of sports related injuries (Brown). When injuries occur, sometimes coaches will make the athlete keep playing. This is not the way to fix the problem of injuries in sports, it’s worsening it. Young football players are playing with concussions instead of resting and taking time off. Some coaches see nothing wrong with this. By doing this, it will only make the injuries worse. The injuries need time to heal, but if the players are still playing it will worsen the injury and prolong or damage the process of healing. People need to stop playing while injured because by doing this they are hurting themselves even more and potentially endangering other players as well as themselves.

Prevention is a step in the right direction for overcoming sports injuries. There are several kids that think they are untouchable, which makes them play recklessly and more aggressively (Brown). With all this going on more kids are getting hurt and nobody’s doing anything to prevent it. There are several ways to try to prevent more injuries from happening. These include implementing different coaching techniques, new rules, and using safer equipment and training. Educating coaches, players, and parents is key to effectuating these changes. In 1990 approximately 140,000 baseball players went to the emergency room with 18,000 of them suffering from facial injuries. In baseball, players only have protective head gear while they are up at bat, but their faces and heads are not protected the rest of the time. Baseball is the most dangerous sport when it comes to facial and head injuries. You could prevent baseball injuries by wearing face masks on batting helmets, and heart guards worn on the chest to prevent collapsing of the chest when hit by a ball. Also, when kids do get injured, the best ways to heal their injury is to rest and not play while waiting for the injury to heal. This is a very serious problem because sports related injuries happen every day, affecting not only the injured athlete but family friends and teammates. For example injuries outcomes can be very expensive, especially if the injury requires having surgery to fix it. People can end up with a lot of debt with medical bills and insurance payments (Brown).  People need to know how to take this seriously to prevent this from happening again.

As my paper has illustrated sports injuries, while affecting millions of kids per year can be prevented through education and changes in policies and procedures regarding safety and how the sports are played.

Works Cited

"Amnesia." World of Health. Gale, 2007. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 23 Sept.       2010.

Brown, Curt. "Playing Hurt: Injuries in Youth Sports." Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN). Nov. 1    1992: 1S+. SIRS Researcher. Web. 24 Sep 2010.

Keller, Julia. "Brain Injury Devastates Victims' Bodies, Changes Their Personalities." Chicago  

            Tribune (Chicago, IL). Jan. 14 2004: n.p. SIRS Researcher. Web. 28 Sep 2010.