Concussions among youth football players also cause for concern

The NFL may be the focal point of football’s concussion problem in the media, but an equally serious concern is injury impact on youth league players. Seventy percent of football players in America are kids aged 6-13, and almost 3.5 million play the sport nationwide.

"I don't think anyone expected the exposure numbers that we found," says Stefan Duma, a professor of biomedical engineering at the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences whose research is focused on football concussions. "From the first age group, the 7 to 8 year old teams, the average number of impacts is 150 per season per player."

Studies by Duma and his team have shown that some of these impacts can carry force up to 100G (similar to the force of a serious car accident). More than 55,000 youth league football players end up in the emergency room with football-related concussions every year. Concerns about these concussions increase with each new study that highlights the long-term consequences repeated blows to the head can have on athletes later in life.

Learn more about how researchers are developing new ways to keep players safe on Sunday’s TechKnow, 7:30ET/4:30PT.