In the past decade, more and more evidence about the devastating effects of concussions in sports. As a result, more athletes and parents have demanded preventive steps as well as further educate the public about the crippling results of such traumatic brain injuries. Some of the most prominent outcomes include new laws being passed across all fifty states and the District of Columbia that make an attempt to address the problem of head injuries in young athletes.
The American Journal of Public Health published a new study that explored the question of how effective these legislative laws have been in addressing and reducing the number of brain injury claims. What they concluded: the statutes appear to be doing their job; there has been a noticeable decline in repeated concussions among teenagers. These laws that were pass between 2009 and 2014 caused a decline after just 2.6 years of being enforced. The American Journal continued to further conclude that such a rate of decline was promising for even more potential drops in brain injury incidences.
In the past, the sports laws that focused on the youth group had focused mainly on having coaches, trainers, athletes and parents get educated on the effects of head concussions. In addition, these youth sports laws had required any athlete that suffered a concussion to be removed from the game and to prevent said athlete from returning onto the field or court until he or she was cleared by a medical staff. This method was to prevent the possibility of recurrence while they played, which would result in an even more sever concussive injury.
Now the results from this most recent publication is not the pioneer that revealed brand new information into the study of brain injuries. Instead, the American Journal’s study further confirmed the findings discovered in other recent studies. For example, the thought that the rate of concussions among high school football players was higher than any other sport was confirmed in this study. In fact, male teenagers who played football faced having a concussion rate that was more than twice the rate of boys who played soccer. The rate increased even more, five times more, when the sport was played in a competitive setting.
However, even though the number of state laws addressing the issue concussive brain injuries has increased, the actual enforcement of recommended measures to prevent the actual injury continues to be sparse. It may take a while for new laws to pass that address this problem.
If you or a loved one has suffered a brain injury as a result of a sports injury, you may be entitled to compensation. Contact an attorney, like a personal injury lawyer trusts, today
