This weeks topic was concussions, which turned out to be really cool and applicable to a lot of people in the class. Before this week I really was not sure what a concussion entailed, having never had one before, all I knew was that it involved getting hit in the head. It turns out there’s more to it than just that…who knew?!
A concussion, aside from being painful, is a very complex reaction to force exerted on the head. This force causes an initial mechanical trauma causes a whole cascade of things to happen, ultimately leading to a flux of ions through many channels in the brain. This rapid depolarization to the brain has many consequences and can lead to permanent damage if not cared for and healed properly. Effects can be memory impairment, behavior changes, headache, inability to concentrate, and in severe cases permanent brain injury. What is worse than one concussion is repeated concussions, especially if the first one hasn’t had time to heal properly. This is seen a lot in high contact sports such as football and boxing. Repeated concussion can lead to long term damage and CTE (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy), which is large-scale neuronal degradation and tau protein build up.
The topic of concussions is one that is actually really applicable to people in our class, as concussions tend to be common in younger people, especially athletes. As we learned in class, a concussion is a time consuming injury, and can be extremely detrimental to physical, and mental function for about four weeks after the fact. Being that proper care for concussion is extremely minimal physical and mental stress, it can be hard to cope with as as a student. This was one of the main points we talked about during our weekly discussion. How should students (whether they be elementary, middle school, high school, or college) go about dealing with a concussion as well as keeping up with classes, and if the concussion was sports related, whether or not to continue with that sport. This topic brought about a lot of good discussion and perspective from students, teachers, and athletes alike. As a group we determined that it would be nearly impossible to keep up with college coursework if you got a concussion, because let’s be real, four weeks of no class isn’t exactly ideal. We came up with the semi-solution of perhaps being able to continue taking classes as independent studies and finish at your own pace. This is a great idea, but would take a lot of logistical work to be able to be implemented.
