On Sunday, Jerious Norwood will strap on his new helmet- the advanced one with the most bubble wrap- and return to the NFL human crash test.

Norwood, who is recovering from the second concussion in just twenty two days, is preparing to hurl himself straight into San Francisco’s nasty defense. For Norwood it’s full speed ahead, potential future consequences be damned.

Last week Norwood said, they are things to think about, but I am playing football right now. I will deal with it whenever that time comes. I just leave it in the good Lord’s hands, say my prayer before the game and then whatever happens just happens. This is football. We get hit sometimes.

Right now the discussions about concussions are hot. College football is preoccupied with the cerebellum of Tim Tebow, and there are been two studies recently that have found that NFL players are more at risk for lasting brain damage due to blows to their heads.

Coping with a concussion is not like dealing with other types of injuries. The damage is not visible and some the symptoms can be elusive. There isn’t any treatment available to help speed the healing process up, frustrating athletes who desperately want to return to playing.’

Norwood said, you can’t just treat the brain after a concussion. The only thing you can really do is rest.

The situation is complicated further due to the ethic that is ages old in football of playing hurt does not translate at all well when it is applied to the brain. This type of thinking is actually one of the worst possible scenarios for concussions.

Every player, just like Norwood, who has had to deal with multiple concussions, has to weigh the uncertainties. When will it be safe for me to play again? What are the odds of suffering another concussion? What are the long term consequences?

When Bob Christian, Falcons fullback, wasn’t able to answer the questions to satisfy anyone he knew he needed to say goodbye to the game that he loved dearly. In 2002, while sitting in the ambulance on his way to Piedmont Hospital while trying to collect his wits after he had been knocked unconscious, Christian saw through the the fog the ending of his career.

One of his first thoughts was. That is it. I have done all that I can do. In some ways it was sort of a blessing. It was easier to quit knowing that I had done everything I could do. He retired at 33 years of age.

Christian, in his entry at Wikipedia it states he suffered 45 concussions in his football playing days. Christian does dispute that number but doesn’t know for sure what the total is.

He does provide graphic testimony to what the effects are of plowing into defenders who are bigger and faster for a living.

Christian, in his 11 year career in the NFL was a blocking back who was ferocious. At 5 foot 11 inches and 232 pounds he was a battery ram who played without concern for his personal safety.

In 1999 in a game versus Minnesota he suffered a blow to his head during the first quarter and went black until halftime. Christian said, I don’t really know how I was able to function. I just kept playing. I don’t remember it. It was as if I work up during the middle of the game.

While playing at Northwestern, Christian was knocked into a dream state, as he describes it, playing against Illinois. He said, I just kept playing.

On Christian’s last play of his career he was knocked unconscious for the second time in 2002. The blow was not all that remarkable, a glancing foreman from a linebacker to the side of his head after catching a screen pass. However, the blow knocked him out in an instant. He fell limp with his head bouncing off of the artificial turf in the Georgia Dome.

Today Christian and his brother operate a very busy speed and strength training facility near Chicago. He says that he is a bit forgetful, but is hoping it is just a natural part of aging. He is also more prone to motion sickness than he was before. Other than that, he has not shown more serious symptoms.

As for what the future holds, Christian says that at some point he will probably have some physical problems and might be somewhat of a burden for his wife. I wish for the best.

News coming in isn’t encouraging. The more that science investigates head trauma in association with football, the more scarier it appears.

A recent study commissioned from the NFL from the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan found that retired NFL players were encountering degenerative brain diseases at a rate much higher than that of the general public.

Of over 1,000 players sampled about six percent said that they had a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, dementia or some other type of disease that was memory related. The rate is five times higher than the national average. For players ages 30 to 49 the percentage was 1.9, which is 19 times higher than the average.

In early 2009, another study that has been ongoing at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE) at Boston University examined six former players brains who had died at 25 to 50 years of age. All six of the players had traumatic encephalopathy symptoms. This brain disease is degenerative and was first associated with punch drunk boxers.

The condition is a particularly bad degenerative type of condition due to the fact that it can lead to dementia, depression or other forms of irrational behavior such as lack of impulse control, according to Dr. Robert Cantu, who is a leading expert on concussions and the CSTE’s co-director. Many of the players brains were studied due to the fact that they had either committed suicide or engaged in high risk behaviors which caused their death.

The brain gets shaken violently inside of the skull in a concussion, said Cantu. If the proper amount of time is allowed for healing, a complete recovery is possible, without a lot of risks of lingering problems.

However, if the brain gets subjected to more trauma before it has recovered, that is when prolonged post concussion syndromes as well as brain damage can be set up. It is very important for the brain and spinal cord to not be treated that same as other parts of the body. It isn’t possibly to participate safely while hurt. You need to recover completely before going back.

Cantu did say that players with multiple concussions didn’t make them more susceptible to them. He contends that certain players are more likely to get concussions more often because of how aggressively they play.

Unfortunately there is no way to tell a running back that he will be safe or remove all of the risk. On Sunday it’s no quilting bee.

Norwood said, playing running back you have to just have to have the ability to take the licks. I will dodge big licks if I can. I try to miss the licks head to head. I do the best that I can. I just have to go out there and play ball. Not think about it.

The place that science leaves off is where personal experience starts. Christian tells Norwood to trust in his heart just as much as he does any new type or helmet designed or medical protocols that are improved.

The official medical guidelines for concussions don’t include prayer, but Christian does agree with Norwood that prayer can help with uncertainties.

Christian said that Jerious need to have peace and if it is time God will tell him like he did me when it was my time. You just have to believe. I am a warrior. I make sacrifices fro the team. This is what I am paid for. The game is rough. What other choices are there but to just meet the football head on?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that concussions comprise approximately one out of every ten sports injuries.

According to a Center for Injury Research and Policy study, last year approximately 130,000 concussions were sustained by athletes in high school. The study also stated that around forty percent of high school athletes suffering from a concussion start playing again too soon. For football players, sixteen percent lost consciousness on the same day of returning to play.

The Journal of Athletic Training in 2007 reported girls were a lot more likely to incur a head trauma in comparable sports than boys. For instance in soccer, girls suffered head traumas at a 68 percent greater rate than boys did.

Some post concussion symptoms include headaches, irritability, dizziness, nausea, depression, poor balance, ears ringing, and drowsiness.