Safety Showcase
Sports Facts
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- Approximately 300,000 people incur head injuries a year during sporting events, however, numbers are underestimates because most injuries go unreported.
- Athletes between the ages of 15 - 24 (children, adolescents, and young adults) are most susceptible to sport head injuries.
- Males are more likely to sustain an injury than females.
- Minor head injuries, like concussions, are cumulative.
- Although a third of head injuries are due to football, boxing is another sporting activity with a high number of deaths reported.
- Important factors to be considered are the athlete's pre-morbid personality and health, previous injuries, social supports, psychiatric history, cognitive ability, age, and substance abuse history.
- Athletes who sustained repeated concussions were often using their heads unwisely, illegally, or both.
- Transient confusion with no loss of consciousness account for more than 75% of all sports-related brain injuries.
- In Gymnastics, a dismount in which the athlete accidentally lands on his/her head causes the head injury.
- In wrestling, landing on the head in the process of a takedown can cause concussions.
- In football, injuries to the head result from making a tackle (43%), being tackled (23%), blocking (20%), or being blocked (10%).
- Football head injuries are twice as frequent as neck injuries.
- One of every 5 high school American football players, suffer a concussion annually.
- The risk of sustaining a concussion in football is 4 - 6 times greater for a player who has sustained a previous concussion.
- Football has the highest rate of concussion with an estimated 100,000 injuries annually .
Resources::
Cantu, R. C. (1998). Return to play guidelines after a head injury. Clinics in Sports Medicine, 17, 45-61.
Cantu, R. C. (1996). Head injuries in sport. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 30, 289-296.
Thurman, D. J., Branche, C. M., & Sniezek, J. E. (1998). The epidemiology of sports-related traumatic brain injuries in the United States: Recent developments. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, 13, 1-8.
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