Preventing Childhood Concussions in Contact Sports
Each year, roughly 3 million children under the age of 14 play organized tackle football in the United States. Unfortunately, with the health benefits of organized sports for young children also comes the risk of injury.
Children under the age of 14 are especially at risk to the long-term effects of concussions and other head trauma sustained through contact sports, and therefore changes should be made to the rules of sports leagues involving young children, according to Dr Robert C. Cantu, of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at the Boston University School of Medicine.
“Tackle football is too dangerous for youngsters. Exposure to head trauma is too risky. What we know about football and the vulnerabilities of children’s brains leads me to this conclusion. More worrisome is what we don’t know. How will the hits absorbed by a 9-year-old today be felt at 30, or 50?” Cantu wrote.
Rather than simply ban younger children’s participation in these sports, he suggests a “fine-tuning” of the rules for those in this age group. Possible rule-changes include:
- Elimination of “heading” the ball in soccer. “In 2010, more high school soccer players sustained concussions than did athletes in basketball, baseball, wrestling and softball combined, according to the Center for Injury Research and Policy in Columbus, Ohio.”
- Extend the ban on body checking in hockey to include 14-year-olds, rather than simply 13-year-olds and under.
- Addition of chinstraps to batting helmets in little league, as well as the elimination of head-first sliding.
- Addition of batting-style helmets to field hockey and girls lacrosse.
“I would expect resistance to these recommendations from parents of the 16,000 players in Pop Warner football’s tackle division for 5- to 7-year-olds, for example. But let’s begin the debate,” he concluded.
-Michael Potts