NFL Injuries and What It’s Like for the Operating Team
Dec 11, 2014 | 9:00 am
Injuries are no less commonplace today than they were even twenty years ago, but they take on extra scrutiny when they occur at this time, than they have in the past, especially as there are burn accident lawyers and lawyers specialized in different types of injuries. It was a sign of manhood to lie through pain and injury in the past. Today, we know that many injuries cannot only pull muscles and break bones, but can cause brain injury.
“What difference does it make?”
Just a few years ago we had the same basic idea for repairing athletes as we had for repairing cars; some tape, baling wire and chewing gum applied literally could fix anything. With numerous suicides and other incidents occurring today, we find that old philosophy to be naive, to say the least. Today, NFL injuries are practically a holistic art. The hamstring pull does not necessarily connect with a brain injury, but a shoulder or arm injury may. Without the new focus on the whole person, it is possible to miss traumatic injuries whose effect will not be fully seen for decades.
“What is the difference today?”
For the operating team today, what was once treated as something simple and straight forward in NFL injuries is now seen in terms that you would apply to an auto accident. The impact and torque on the human body with each launch from scrimmage is very much like any impact you would expect from a collision. To look at how this new outlook applies, you can read the response to injuries of college students entering the NFL draft. The detail of what they are looking at and for are significantly higher than even a decade ago.
“Are there more injuries today?”
The training and the depth of contact may have increased over the years or it may be more awareness, but the NFLPA has stated that the numbers of injuries have increased. In a 2010 report called “Dangers of the Game of Football,” the NFLPA states that injuries had increased from 3.2 to 3.7 per week per team and the percentage of players injured increased to 63 percent compared to the 2002-09 average of 59 percent. The numbers of players that are placed on injured reserve is also increasing.
What that means to the operating room team is that you have men of larger mass and greater speed running into each other each Sunday, creating greater injuries more often. Each time the player presents with an injury, a new challenge arises and the team not only needs to look at the obvious, but also things that may have been over looked a few years ago.
The operating team has to be intense and thorough in triaging NFL injuries these days. Our understanding of the long term effects and the effects of hidden injuries has grown in orders of magnitude in recent years, but having said that there is still much to learn, and the teams operating on NFL players are the vanguard of that learning. This is just one of many areas of concentration that you can look into upon completing nurse schooling.