User:MattHerceg/sandbox

5.1 Head Injuries and Brain Damage
As the game of football continues to evolve, scientists are constantly conducting studies to determine the long term effects that football may have on one’s brain.There are nearly 80,000 college football players and football is reported to have the most amount of concussions for any sport. A recent study done by the National Football League (NFL) was taken to court. The results showed that nearly a third of retired players develop brain issues at younger ages than the general population or those that have never played football before. It also stated that, for NFL players younger than 50, there is an 80% chance that they will develop alzheimer's or dementia. Statistically speaking. 80% is a very large number. The average chance that the general public will develop one of these two brain disorders when under 50 years old is less than 10%. Patrick Bellogowan, a scientist at the University of Tulsa’s Laureate Institute for Brain Research conducted a study on the brain that proved that the longer an athlete plays football, the smaller their left hippocampal region was. The hippocampus region in the brain involves both short term and long term memory, and if damaged, can have lasting effects on both of these traits. On average, this hippocampal region for the average football player(Playing either in high school, college, or professional) was 14% smaller than people who have never played football. Bellogowan also found that it may only take a player 10-15 hits in a football game in order for physical changes to occur to the brain. The New York Times posted an article of a study that was conducted in at least one third of the states that involved young teenage football players. As many as fifty of these children have died or been injured from concussion like injuries. A link leading to the many accounts of death or injury can be found below. One study found that 61% of former football players in the NFL had at least one concussion during their career. Another 24% of professional football players sustained three or more concussions through their careers. A study was also done that determined that college football players sustain much more high impact hits during a game than high school football players. Linemen were found to have the least amount of impact of acceleration when hitting another player. There is currently a court case between five thousand retired NFL players who are suing the NFL for misinforming them about the long term injury risks of football such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. NFL retirees published a work called the Journal of Neurotrauma that proved that head injuries affected a wide variety of functions in the body. Some functions included less levels of testosterone in men and even erectile dysfunction. Other factors were heart problems and diabetes.

5.2 Reporting Head Injuries
One study showed that, out of 32 randomly chosen lineman with head injuries, only one was willing to admit that he may have a concussion. In other words, the player will refuse to get his head checked out and will continue to play as if nothing happened in the first place. The study also found that running backs are the most likely to report possible concussions compared to any other position in football. It also found that, the older a player gets, the less likely he is to report a concussion. It reported that younger players such as rookies tend to feel more pressured to get checked for concussions than older, more veteran players. ===5.3 The HIT System and Protective Measures=== The average high school football player receives over 650 impacts in a single season. In order to help improve the safety of football, a HIT system is in place in the helmets of NFL players. This HIT system involves wires that are embedded in a players helmet that can determine the force of an impact on a player. This can help decided how players are impacted by the forces and further experiments.

5.4 Concussion Numbers by NFL
The NFL has statistics on every concussion reported during a season. 2012 - 261 head injuries during the NFL season 2013 - 228 head injuries during the NFL season