Joining the Conversation: Arguing to Inquire - Essay Example

Joining the Conversation: Arguing to Inquire Introduction The problem of concussions and how they affect football players (American football) has been an issue that has been in debate for the longest time now. There are those who worry about concussions so much that there have been calls for football to be terminated. In fact, there are still calls from some quarters to discontinue high school and college football because it is considered as a threat to the health of the minors who play it (Scolaro & Philip, 91–100) . The scientific investigations that have been done on this issue are many and varied. In the following two articles, two different views have been presented with regard to the way these concussions sustained during play can lead to the players having long term negative impacts. One suggests that the effects are mostly temporary while the other one looks at the concussion as having long term effects on the players. Weaver et al (643-650) in their article report their findings about college football-related concussions and find that concussions are still a problem that needs to be considered seriously. They argue that even after the high-tech protective gear devised in the recent years, there is still a high number of concussions that occur in the field, especially with regard to collegiate football. Their investigation was however directed towards understanding the long term effects of these concussions. In this regard, they wanted to investigate the trend of long term concussion. Their study indicates that although there were alarmingly high number of concussions that occurred during the play time, a great majority of these concussions were not life threatening or detrimental to health of those who suffer them. In fact, they found that a majority of these concussions were temporally and most players could actually resume their playtime as soon as within a few minutes. These findings have very important implications with regard to the debate of the effect of concussions in college football. Guskiewicz et al (903-910) researched the relationship between recurrent concussion and how they reacted to mental disorders in retired football players. In their study, they investigated a cohort of former professional football players and their later mental health. Their findings pointed to the fact that there is a correlation between the two. These findings indicate that concussions sustained from playing football are a serious threat to those who are involved. These findings bring a different dimension with regard to the issue of concussion in football. Their findings indicate that football players have a high risk of suffering mental illnesses in their later years. The issue of concussions and how they relate to health for former players of American football is an issue that becomes an emotional topic. This is a topic that is so serious that in the recent past, there are law suits that have been placed against football association by former players who say they suffered big mental illnesses. These two group of authors look at these issues from different perspectives. On the one side, they do both agree that the issue of concussions is a major issue. However they do not seem to agree with the fact that these concussions do have a long term effect on the individuals. According to Weaver et al (643-650), the issue of concussions is not a serious issue that can be detrimental to the continuation of sports. However Guskiewicz (903-910) argues that concussions do pose a permanent threat to the players. Both of these authors look at the issue from a different perspective and so they can be either wrong or right. To begin with, with regard to the issue concussion, football is not the only risk factor that can be associated with the issue. As a result, while there may be a relationship between mental disorder and concussion sustained during the play time of American football, this may not be used to entirely mean that those affected could not have ended up in such a situation where they would have the same problems. Sporting is a lifestyle and even if these so called violent sports did not exist, most people who are involved in such physically demanding sports may have chosen the other areas of life that would have led to the same situations. What Guskiewicz (903-910) did not explore was the relationship between the personality of those people and their involvement in these sports. This could have helped to find out whether this also played a part in determining how these affected the players. In this regard, although this study indicates that there is a correlation between concussions sustained during playing American football and later mental health for these former players, what it does not indicate is whether the personalities of these people are important in determining whether a person will play such sports. If it could be determined that personality and not just body type and strength is also a factor that leads to person being involved in such physically demanding activity, it can then be said that even in the absence of these physically demanding sports, these people would still be involved in other physical activities that are just as important in bringing up the risk factors for concussion. Looking at Weaver et al (643-650) however also introduces a different dimension to the issue of concussion. In their findings, they argue that concussions are not as much a big risk as they might be thought to be. Their investigation does not look at the long term effect of concussions and only looked at the short term effects. In this regard, they failed to look at how these players may be affected in the long term by the issue of concussion. In their conclusion, they argue that since most of these players who had suffered a concussion were able to return to the field just a few minutes after they suffered the concussion, that the effects of the concussion were not permanent. This argument is misguided in at least one way. To begin with, it is not possible to know the long term effect of a phenomenon if one does not carry out a longitudinal study. As a result, because their investigation was not a longitudinal one, it is not viable for them to argue, or have a conclusion that deals without the longitudinal issues. Works Cited Weaver, Nancy et al. "Epidemiology of Concussion in Collegiate and High School Football Players." The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 28. 5, (2000): PP. 643-650. Guskiewicz, Kevin, et al. "Recurrent Concussion and Risk of Depression in Retired Professional Football Players." Official Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine (2013): PP. 903-910. Scolaro, Rosemarie & Philip, Schatz. "Enduring effects of concussion in youth athletes." Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 17, (2002): PP. 91–100. Read More