Athletes play sports for the competition and fun of it knowing they will get hurt or develop a disease overtime, but still choose to participate because of the rush certain sports give. A disease associated with athletes is Amyotrophic Lateral sclerosis (ALS) which is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, it is a disorder in the nervous system that causes death of nerve cells and destroys Motor neurons. Another disease associated with many athletes is Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) which is an irreversible brain disease caused by multiple hits to the head triggering tissue degeneration. ALS disease usually develops between the ages of 55-75 for non athletes and in their 30s for athletes. It is more common for men to develop ALS than …show more content…
Most people diagnosed have an average survival time of 3 years. Their is 20% of people diagnosed that survive 5 years, 10% of people surviving 10 years and rarely happening is 5% people surviving 20+ years.
CTE is a progressive degenerative disease that is recurring caused by brain trauma and multiple head injuries. The disease attacks the brain through an abnormal protein called Tau which clumps up and spreads throughout the brain killing many brain cells. As Tau kills brain cells, the mass of the brain decreases overtime causing loss of functions. The irreversible deterioration is seen in military veterans and contact sport athletes. Patients experiencing CTE go through depression , aggression, addiction, and memory loss that concludes to other diseases that they are at risk of getting. The most common disease is Alzheimer's which is a form of dementia causing difficulty remembering, confusion, behavior changes,and mood changes. Dementia is a disease causing brain cells to die and get damaged while getting worse overtime showing memory loss. The second most common disease is Parkinson's which includes loss of brain cells that control movement, patients with Parkinson's experience hand shaking tremors and uncontrollable movements. Also Huntington's is a disease that is inherited and passed on by a 50/50 chance of the genes, it is incurable and causes death when their are blood clots due to no
In the Newsela article, "Brain disease called CTE is found to affect almost all pro football players," the main event is explained how the majority of football players, no matter the type of league, have CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). CTE is a disease, commonly found in athletes, where the brain slowly degenerates over time, and has symptoms of memory loss, anxiety, confusion, impaired judgment, impulsive control problems, suicidal tendencies, Parksinson's disease, and, eventually, dementia. In the article, CTE is commonly found in football players who have with stood injuries, such as concussions, during their football careers: before high school, during high school, semi-professional, Canadian Football League, and the NFL (National
Many scientists and doctors have researched to find the reasons why young athletes have gotten those diseases. Due to many concussions and hits to the head young athletes tend to have ALS and CTE at a younger age. Take Pete Frates, a baseball player, into consideration; he was diagnosed at the age of 27, which reveals the drastic age difference between an average person and an athlete. This occurred due to the head injuries he received playing baseball. Furthermore, the average age to being diagnosed for a regular person is 50. According to NCBI.gov, “ALS is rare before the age of 40 years and increases exponentially with age thereafter. This further proves that because of the number of concussions athletes receive they are below the age average of
Other times when sitting to watch a sports game, the last thought that crosses through the mind is whether a player will be injured or will have consequences later in life. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is gaining awareness because of current uprise in athletes developing it at a very young age such as Lou Gehrig a famous baseball player. This disease affects the body by causing loss in muscle movement. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a disease affects the mind not the body and is a progressive degenerative disease. CTE has many diseases that fall under its category such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s, Huntington's disease and Dementia. The most common factors for these diseases are concussions and head trauma because athletes
CTE is a neurodegenerative disease found in people who have had multiple head injuries. These head injuries build up a certain protein which over time kill brain cells. The onset of CTE comes from long term, repetitive injury, thus the disease generally affects older
ALS and CTE’s are both results of repetitive head trauma. Athletes in sports such as boxing, football, hockey, wrestling and even baseball have been diagnosed with either of these horrific diseases. Head trauma also known as concussions is a major factor when you receive a big hit to the head, the brain bounces back and forth hitting the inside of the skull, which results in some brain damage which affects you both short term and long term. I believe we should bring more awareness to both ALS and CTE’s to find a cure or more ways to prevent it.
The number of athletes being diagnosed with neurodegenerative diseases is increasing over time. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) are both known for targeting athletes at a much younger age than the average person. ALS and CTE are similar due to the fact that they are a progressive degenerative disease. Both diseases are linked with head trauma and the loss of movement within the human body. ALS is also known as Lou Gehrigs disease; he brought national attention to the disease when he was diagnosed in 1939. Adrian Robinson Jr. was a former NFL player that was diagnosed with CTE after his death. Recent research shows that contact sports might play a big role in why athletes are getting diagnosed
injuries. This disease can cause parts of the brain to degenerate, or it can build up an
Diagnosed at such a young age, usually non-athletes get diagnosed with ALS at the age of 40-70 with average age at 55. Non-athletes don't suffer with injury to the head as much as Athletes do. Athletes however, tend to be diagnosed with ALS between 20’s and 30’s. CTE was discovered in 3 of 14 high school players and 48 of 53 college players. One Athlete named Junior Seau, who committed suicide in May, two years after retiring as one of the linebackers in the NFL. Seau suffered from the type of Chronic brain damage. The family of Seau stated “ a lot of head-to-head collisions over the course of 20 years of playing in the NFL, developed the detention of his brain and ability to think logically” (paragraph 4), resulted to the disease of CTE.
Have you ever heard about CTE? CTE is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic sub concussive hits to the head. An article about the dangers of CTE was recently posted on CNN.com by Jason Hanna, Debra Goldschmidt, and Kevin Flower.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS is a disease caused by concussions and head trauma. ALS is a rare neurological disease that mainly involves nerve cells, which control voluntary muscle movement, such as breathing, talking, or chewing. With this being a progressive disease that has no cure it has made a tremendous impact for check ups after blows to the head. A hit to the head does not always mean you have a concussion, but with symptoms and side effects the athlete should not take a chance and get it checked out immediately. This is more of a physical incapacity disease. ALS has become a common disease for athletes in the mid-twenties, and life expectancy is very slim once the diagnosis has taken place. The main reported life periods for ALS athletes has been 3-5 years, but with medication and treatments it has had higher life expectancies about 20% have 5 years, 10% have 10 years, and 5% have 20 years. The athletes lives have changed from the beginning of the diagnoses till the end of the lives they do live with the disease. Being a scary thing to think about athletes do tend to have the ability to walk away at retirement perfectly clear from ALS, which is a win.
It is amazing how some diseases can end the life of someone gradually to the point of consuming completely and bring them to death, but the most surprising about this is that these diseases can be caused by daily activities. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is a neurodegenerative progressive disease. It means that affects the activities that a person normally performs, they start to lose the balance, movement, speaking, breathing, and in some occasions affects the heart. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is a terrible disease for those who suffer from this, because it derives more diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease. CTE is developed for repetitive blows to the head and the majority of the time is difficult
In high school many kids often choose not to participate in extra curricular activities saying that there pointless or that only a certain type of person would do something like play football, or join the chess club. While this type of thinking may get some people through school and through life, can it really be looked at as being a healthy lifestyle? Today sports have proven to be a healthy outlet for students, in dealing with stress in the classroom at home and among their peers.
Many athletes do not realize if they are in danger of getting these two types until it comes to an end and realize something is wrong with them. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy are two types of diseases that athletes get. These two types of diseases are caused by head traumas and mostly can be affected with a concussion. ALS is known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis it's a disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain also in the spinal cord. ALS can also make the person's body weak. CTE is known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and is mainly found in the brain of an athlete. CTE can also show how the person acts or how their attitude is toward a person. Athletes are getting these types of diseases
True role models are those who possess the qualities that we would like to have. Role models are those who have affected us in ways that influence us to be better people. They are people who others imitate, emulate or look to for guidance. There are good role models who inspire greatness in others and bad role models who are bad influences. There are even anti-role models, pegged by the media as "bad girls" or "bad boys" who serve as good examples of what not to do if you want to become a successful, respected person. With the majority of my time spent as an athlete throughout high school and college, I believe athletes should pose as role models.
The world of sports has grown larger than life over the past century, especially in college. Being a collegiate athlete is, without question, the hardest athletic profession in the world. Not only are students devoted to their sport, which requires an obscene amount of time of preparation, but they are also devoted to their school work. And the award they receive for their hard work? Of course there are the great memories, friendships made, “free education”, or national championships, but are theses students receiving their fair share? Should college athletes be paid? It is a question that has been asked, but never truly answered. College athletes should be paid for their work. I even have the perfect system to see