health

Concussion occurs when the brain is pushed against one side of the
skull, often by impact with a blunt object. The impact can result from
a person’s striking the head against an object as well as being hit by
something or someone. Athletic injuries are the most common cause of
concussions, but concussions can also result from automobile, bicycle, or
other transportation accidents, criminal assaults, workplace accidents, or
accidents in the home—particularly falls.

Concussions in Professional Sports

Several deaths among high-profile professional
athletes focused attention on the dangers
of ignoring or minimizing concussions—
particularly the long-term effects of repeated
head injuries. In 2006, Andre Waters, a professional
football player, committed suicide in
his Florida home. Waters’s suicide was preceded
in 2004 by the death of Justin Strzelczyk,
another football star, in an auto accident following
a 37-mile-long high-speed police chase
on the wrong side of the highway.
Christopher Nowinski, a former professional
wrestler whose career was ended by post-concussion
syndrome in 2003, decided to investigate
the effects of repeated concussions on
professional athletes. Nowinski contacted a
neurosurgeon at the University of Pittsburgh
who was able to obtain samples of the dead
football players’ brain tissues after contacting
their families. The doctor found that Waters’s
brain resembled that of an 85-year-old man
with Alzheimer disease, and that Strzelczyk’s
personality changes in the weeks preceding his
death could be traced to brain damage from
repeated concussions. In 2007 Nowinski
founded the Sports Legacy Institute, an organization
dedicated to researching sports-related
brain injuries in order to protect the health and
lives of all athletes.