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lizi -> RE: Football, Hard Hits, and Kiddie Leagues (8/14/2012 6:18:09 AM)
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The field of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is receiving a lot of study right now on the whole, and as it relates specifically to children and young adults. I am currently studying in the medical field, we've been bringing a lot of this research into the classroom for discussion.
Right this moment I don't have the time to look up links and post them as i have to leave asap, but at least giving you a heads up here on the fact that there are things to be concerned about with the head injury - sports link as it pertains to kids seemed important to me. We had several presentations in the last year on TBI's in connection with professional football, military endeavors, and kid's sports. There are at present scholarly articles in medical/university/professional databases available for you to read. One thing to look into especially is the presence of tau proteins in the brain that result from head trauma which mimic or cause dementia like issues.
With the new evidence coming out at this time, if I had a child who wanted to play a sport like football I would say no. I am not an alarmist or overly cautious. In fact, I've raised 3 sons and as a result am extremely laid back in the area of physical harm. I am swayed by the things I have learned on this subject of permanent injury to the brain resulting from repeated microtrauma, to the point that I would choose to weather the storm that would result from denying something my children really wanted to do, for their better good. I must stress that I am a risktaker myself and I do NOT usually choose to take the safe, sanitized route for myself or for my kids. There is new, solid, and compelling research in this area that I feel would result in my changing what I have done in the past (I had one son play football), and I would now adopt a new course of action and not allow a football like sport to be an option for the children in my care. To me, weighing the positive/negative checks and balances for football, are now in the negative category.
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