Newswise — The feature film “Concussion” doesn’t open until Christmas Day but it has already brought new attention to the issue of repetitive head injuries among NFL players.
However concussions are not just experienced by pro players. In fact, more than three-quarters of the football players in the United States are under the age of 14 and they are just as – and perhaps more – susceptible to head injuries because their brains are still developing.
Should these three million youngsters be playing the sport?
“We certainly need more scientific research to fully understand the effects of repeated hits to the brains of children, but completely banning children from playing football as was advocated in a recent op-ed in the New York Times, is not the best option,” said Joel Stitzel, Ph.D., chairman of the Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Science.
“Team sports, including football, have many positive benefits for kids, so finding ways to make these sports safer should be our objective. Pop Warner football already has made important changes to its regulations, and more needs to be done to improve equipment, practice guidelines and regulations based on the most current research findings.”
Stitzel and his team at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center are collaborating with researchers at Virginia Tech and two other universities on the largest and most comprehensive biomedical study of youth football players to date. The five-year project is being funded by a $3.3 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health. The potential impact of this study is significant because there are more than 3 million youth football players across the country.
Research on head injuries in young football players has been ongoing at Wake Forest Baptist since 2011.
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