Football player's suicide draws attention to TBIs among athletes

Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2013-01-11 02:00

Article here. Excerpt:

'The former N.F.L. linebacker Junior Seau had a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma when he committed suicide last spring, the National Institutes of Health said Thursday.

The findings were consistent with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease widely connected to athletes who have absorbed frequent blows to the head, the N.I.H. said in a statement. Seau is the latest and most prominent player to be associated with the disease, which has bedeviled the sport in recent years as a proliferation of studies have exposed the possible long-term cognitive impact of head injuries sustained on the field.

“The type of findings seen in Mr. Seau’s brain have been recently reported in autopsies of individuals with exposure to repetitive head injury,” the N.I.H. said, “including professional and amateur athletes who played contact sports, individuals with multiple concussions, and veterans exposed to blast injury and other trauma.”'

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I really doubt society would allow this kind of news to go by with little notice if the ppl, incl. children, sustaining these TBIs were female.

But there is a duty that men must realize they have to themselves. Some do and forego careers in "heavy contact" sports such as pro football, but others decide they like the money and for some, fame, and trade their future physical and mental health for the here and now rewards.

But the part of the moral equation that isn't being addressed is the duty adults have to their sons. Just because their child is a boy doesn't mean it's right for them to ignore the serious risks associated with heavy contact sports.

Until adults change their attitudes toward their sons in this regard (and others, too), I think we'll just keep seeing more tragedies like these.

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Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2013-01-11 02:11