A job that can be a headache

NFL football, one of the worlds most popular and well-known sports. Its also well known that professional football is one of the more physical sports, mainly because some of the players are the size of a doorway and the ones who arent run faster then race horses. Everyone who has ever watched a game of football has cringed or yelled "Oooooo" at a high impact hit. People are aware of the big hits, but most people are not aware of the frequency of catastrophic injury. Even before Kevin Everett of the Bills made a career and possibly life threating tackle when he broke multiple vertebrae, the NFL was aware of increasing injuries, such as concussions. Everett's injury is more severe but less common than the rising number of concussions. They became such a problem, better yet a concern to the point that the NFL commission reformed its policy and had a conference with team physicians and athletic trainers from every team, stressing new rules and guidelines for dealing with a concussion. The guidelines were:
1. The player should be completely asymptomatic and have normal neurological test results, including mental status testing at rest and after physical exertion, before returning to play.
2. Symptoms to be taken into account include confusion, problems with immediate recall, disorientation to time, place and person, anterograde and retrograde amnesia, fatigue, and blurred vision.
3. If an NFL player sustains a loss of consciousness, as determined by the team medical staff, he should not return to the same game or practice.
4. NFL team physicians and athletic trainers will continue to exercise their medical judgment and expertise in treating concussions, including considering any history of concussions in a player.
Most people are unaware of how frequent and severe the concussion problem is, hopefully some people will realize just how dangerous each down can be. For the National Football League to be forced to take steps in an attempt to "manage" concussions, clearly playing in this brutal league can be a headache.