Risk of Brain Injury Related to Helmets?
An estimated 25 percent of retired football players have increased risk for developing a form of dementia. Additionally, studies have found that dementia forms much sooner for football players than in those who did not play. Dave Herman, a retired NFL player with more than a decade of playing for the New York Jets, increasingly had problems with memory and thinking over the years.
Dr. Sam Gandy, one of Herman’s doctors and a neurologist for Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, said that the group who viewed his case could not give a solid diagnosis. Gandy continued to say that there was a 3-2 split about whether it was CTE or Alzheimer’s. In a PET scan, the results revealed that Herman damaged both sides of the hippocampus of the brain. The best explanation is that the damage occurred from recurring head injury.
Herman’s case is not unique. According to the CDC, an approximate 173,285 adolescents suffer concussions and traumatic brain injury every year in the United States. Additionally, emergency room visits that occurred due to a sports-related brain injury rose 60 percent in the last decade.
Ongoing debate occurs over the issue of whether helmets reduce the risk of concussions. Ben Utecht, a former NFL tight end for the Indianapolis Colts, has lived through the effects of concussions that occurred because of football. The long-term impact would be memory loss for the events of a game that were loved. In 2009, Ben Utecht suffered his fifth recorded traumatic brain injury that ended his career.
While there is no question that good football equipment reduces the risk of concussions, can the right helmet lower the number of concussions? Symptoms of a concussion include appearing stunned or dazed and being unable to recall the events before the concussion. When an athlete suffers a concussion, they should be taken off the field immediately.
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