CTE & Safety Revisions

It is hard to tell how many athletes (especially those in professional careers), who participate in contact sports, add to the growing statistic of the death toll of CTE. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a recently discovered neurological disease which has become more severe. Athletes who have committed suicide have been found with signs of CTE. The worst part is that there is no cure, and it is extremely hard to diagnose someone with CTE before they eventually succumb to the disease. Is there any way to help with this disease at all?

About the Author

My name is Jaellan Magtira, and I am an athlete who does Cross country, Wrestling and Track and Field. I wanted to research something that both interests me but also provides a benefit to an issue that is overlooked.

Can policy revision help CTE?

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurological disease that is caused by repeated head trauma. The symptoms often include depression, cognitive impairment, and behavioral shifts. Professional Athletes who have committed suicide are increasingly discovered with developed CTE. It is hard to diagnose until after death and additionally, there are no long-term safety precautions and cures for this disease. To help prevent CTE, policy revision, especially in waivers, may be able to educate young athletes and spread awareness of the symptoms before it is too late.

Research Question:

What are the implications of a revised safety proposal on american teenage athletes, who play high school sports in Kings County Washington, that have a potential to develop CTE ?

AP Capstone Canidate, Class of 2025. Jaellanmca@gmail.com

Definitions

CTE

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is a neurological disease caused by repeated head trauma. Symptoms include a wide variety of neurological changes such as depression, and behavioral changes. There is no known cure, and an official diagnosis can only be done after a affected person dies, usually by suicide. The demographics of the mortality rate consists of professional athletes wg

FinalForms

FinalForms is a widely adopted system in american high schools that helps keep track of attendance, waivers, eligibility, and more. When an athlete signs up for their sport, they must sign the required documents in final form.

Revised Safety Form

An additional form that allows the athlete to be informed of the possible symptoms of CTE, and where to find help. There are currently no documents that clearly and boldly state these implications. Additonal awarness may help save more lives.

Contact Sports

Sports that include contact with other players such as Football, Wrestling, Lacrosse, Soccer, etc. Athletes in these sports are prone to repeated head trauma.

Significance

Solving the CTE problem one step at a time. By implementing an easy safety procedure within the waiver system, it is easy to incorporate into schools, and may be an effective way to spread awareness and ultimately save lives.

Method

My main method of finding data will be through a survey. There will be an online and paper version of the survey which may ask questions that reference any possible CTE symptoms that may already be present. Then another that will ask their feelings about a sample waiver example.

Hypothesis

My hypothesis within the study is assuming that a revised safety proposal will allow athletes to become more aware about the disease in general.

Methodology

The revised safety proposal will be implemented into a survey which consists of several components to gather different information. The simple strategy is to ask participants with a survey, and compile information into a comprehensive report that reflects the aims of the study. The survey will come in a digital format. It will ask questions that survey their demographics, additionally, the sports they play. The survey mentions various safety consent forms which the participant will then add their reflection with a multiple choice question. In order to advertise, a mix use of inquiry and flyers usage.

Revised safety proposal

Yellow highlighted section emphasizes the new changes shown in the photo.

Clicking on the link moves you to the text on the left.

Major Sources and Author Mentions

I plan to use some foundational resources from well documented and renowned authors or researchers to the discipline. The two majors come from Robert Kandell and Anne McKee. Robert Kandell, one of the major authors for Principles of Neuroscience, a renowned researcher, and a textbook name that all neurological students should recognize. Anne McKee, of the University of Boston is one of the leading researcher for CTE. She has dedicated remarkable effort towards the research of CTE.

Data & Results

I received a total of 6 responses from the survey. These came from sports competitions.

For the sport demographics, Football participation at 33.33%, Wrestling at 83.33% and aquatic sports at 16.67%
For the awareness of CTE before, 50% said yes, but not to a full extent, 16.67% knew completely everything about CTE, and 33.33% said they didn't know what CTE is.
50% of participants rated the survey 6-8/10 on informing them, 16.67% rated the survey 9-10/10, and the rest did not answer.
66% tend to skip over information when filling out forms while 33% read the information

Since the chi square resulted in the value of 0.18, and the degrees of freedom as one, the p value will be one according to the Table of P-values. Since 0.18 is less than one, the study failed to reject the null hypothesis.

In addition to the Chi-Square analysis, it is important to also apply the central limit theorem. The CLT purpose would be essential in determining if the results are representative of the population. The CLT in this study cannot apply as the six total participants failed to reach the thirty, which means this study cannot be representative of the general population.

What I learned from this data is that the revised safety proposal is not the best at conveying the message alone, but still accomplishes in informing the participants to some degree. This is because 50% of the participants stated that the survey was around 6-8%. Even then, the majority of participants said they would skip over the information. This mean we failed to achieve the hypothesis in this experiment

Conclusion

The results has shown us that CTE is a more difficult issue to tackle than I expected. Even smaller steps to reduce CTE has been proven more difficult as a simple revision in the guideline won't drastically change. In the future, finding more effective ways of implementing CTE education in a more practical setting will be essential in reducing severity in the future.

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