A concussion is a type of traumatic injury caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head, or by a hit to the body that causes the head and brain to move rapidly back and forth (CDC, 2019)
The sudden movement can cause the brain to bounce around or twist in the skull, creating chemical changes in the brain and sometimes stretching and damaging brain cells (CDC, 2019)
Approximately 70,000 collegiate athletes participate in football annually in the USA (Baugh, Kroshus, 2015)
The nature of the sport of football involves high impact and collision, which makes concussions very prevalent
In the past 5 years, college football athletes suffered approximately 3,400 concussions (NCAA, 2017)
3.74 concussions were identified per 1000 athletic exposures at the college level (Dompier et al., 2015)
Even though concussions are prevalent in college football, they are often not taken seriously as they are not readily visible by an observer like a broken bone is, leading to a decrease in timely removal from play and misdiagnoses and mismanagement of concussions (Schneider et al., 2019)
Concussions rely heavily on the athlete to disclose symptoms to a coach, parent, athletic trainer, or team physician (Baugh et al., 2015)