In honor of last night’s game, I am devoting this blog to basketball and its relationship to a current issue in social neuroscience. In the past decade, an increasing number of children are admitted to emergency rooms for various brain injuries sustained while playing basketball. Often, these are traumatic brain injuries. According to myhealthnewsdaily.com, brain injuries (including concussions, head fractures and internal head injuries) have actually increased 70% in the past 10 years. Incidentally, this increase has occurred despite a 22% decline in the total amount of basketball-related injuries over the same time period.
There are several contributing factors to this increase in brain injuries. First, a probable reason is that basketball is the most popular team sport for children. Second, the rise may be related to an increase in recognition and treatment of traumatic brain injuries. Third, the increased intensity and competitiveness of basketball (and sports in general), in addition to the fact that children begin playing at younger ages, might also be contributing factors to this issue.
Researchers declare that these brain injuries, even if not considered serious at the time, can have long-term effects. Author Lara McKenzie, principal investigator at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio conducted a recent study. She said, "traumatic brain injury can have long-term impacts on young athletes. It can affect their heath, their memory, their learning and their survival." Most agree that in order to address this issue, athletes and coaches must go through training to recognize traumatic brain injury symptoms. Furthermore, they must also learn how to prevent and avoid head injuries.
First off, GO DUKE! Secondly, I think this is pretty interesting, if not eye opening, because, as you said, basketball is a very popular sport with increasing competitiveness. I find it somewhat alarming to know that innocent teams sport such as this one can lead to long-term brain damages. What do you think could be a solution to this? You can't ask the players to be less passionate for fear of brain injury...so what's a person to do?
ReplyDeleteI really like this article. I like that it related to sports, a different subject from all the other articles I've been reading. It never occurred to me that brain injuries would be so prevalent in basketball, my guess would have been for football. However, the cultural context of athletics has a lot to do with the increased interest of basketball for young children at earlier ages. I believe it has a lot to do with the image that basketball players have in this country, so children see this and they understand the competitive aspect, which leads them to be interested in basketball. I just can't understand why there are more brain injuries now then before and if this rate is similar across other sports.
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty surprising, but I wonder how if the data is presented in a misleading way (whether intentionally or not)- the high number of basketball-caused traumatic head injuries is probably largely due to the popularity of basketball to begin with. I am curious about the percentages of brain injuries within each sport, not just the overall picture of how prevalent are certain sports and thus injuries related to those particular sports. Nevertheless, I do think it probably has to do with the nature of the sport as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm very surprised to see that wrestling was not on the pie charts. I have a friend who isn't allowed to wrestle anymore because he's reached his concussion "quota." How much can the brain actually take before it is seriously damaged? The fact that they have a maximum amount of concussions they're allowed to have means their must be some knowledge about the extent of the brain's healthy condition.
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