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Football Tackles Concussion Risk

What's being done to protect football players -- from the NFL to high school -- from concussions and their effects.

By Gina Shaw
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

When a football player suffers a concussion during a game or in practice, it's serious business. And the sport is taking it seriously.

The issue gained national attention in 2009. Increasing attention has been focused on the damage football players’ brains may sustain as a result of concussions associated with the repeated tackles they endure.

Football and Concussions

What should be done when a football player (or any other athlete) has a suspected concussion? Read expert advice on immediate treatment and when the player can return to training and competition.

Football Concussions: What to Do

Fast-forward to February 2011. That's when the NFL announced new guidelines that will be used, starting in the 2011 season, to determine whether an athlete who’s taken a powerful hit and sustained a concussion will be benched or sent back into the game.

The guidelines, developed by the NFL's Head, Neck, and Spine Committee, combine a symptom checklist, evaluation of the player's attention and memory, neurologic examination, and a balance assessment -- and it can be used on the sidelines.

It's the first time the NFL has spelled out what is to be done when a possible concussion has happened.

"It incorporates the most important aspects of a focused exam, so that injury is identified, and athletes with concussion and more serious head and spine injury can be removed from play," says Margot Putukian, MD, the head team physician at Princeton University and chair of the Return-to-Play subcommittee of the NFL's Head, Neck, and Spine Committee.

When Concussion Strikes

In a concussion, the brain is shaken so forcefully that it hits the inside of the skull, causing brain injury.

Symptoms of a concussion can include loss of consciousness or drowsiness, confusion, headache, nausea or vomiting, blurred vision, and loss of memory of events surrounding the injury.

If a player is left unconscious for more than a few minutes, the concussion is clearly serious. But sometimes even seemingly mild concussions can do damage. "A minor hit on the field can take a long time to recover," says Mark Lovell, PhD, founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Sports Medicine Concussion Program.

There is no magic number of concussions that constitutes "too many."

"It's not as simple as how many concussions someone's had -- it's total brain trauma," says Robert Cantu, MD, co-director of Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy and clinical professor of neurosurgery at Boston University School of Medicine.

"Linemen who've had almost no concussions have the majority of cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, because on every play they get their brains rattled, trying to block with their head," says Cantu, who is also the co-director of the Neurological Sports Injury Center at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Research Shows Risks

An evolving body of research has linked athletes’ repeated concussions to long-term brain damage, including a condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease that mimics dementia.

CTE symptoms have been reported in a number of former NFL players, many of whom are much younger than the typical Alzheimer’s patient.

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