The purpose of my paper is the growing awareness to concussions in contacts sports and how it affects teenagers and families as a whole. I chose to write about this because I and many of my friends have been greatly affected by concussions through sports. I am going to have two different interviews with friends of mine that have been affected by concussions. Mackenzie Degelder is one of them. She obtained her concussions through taekwondo and now cannot participate in a sport that she could have went to the olympics for and loved so much. The other person I chose to interview was Katie Pogue. I have played with Katie since I started hockey and she was recently diagnosed with POTS syndrome so now she cannot play hockey anymore either, you can get POTS from having too many concussions and it affects you for the rest of your life. With myself having two concussions, possibly more depending on what doctor you ask and the effects it has had on me and the people I chose to interview thought it would be a good topic to write about since it hits so close to home and is such an up and coming controversy these days with contact sports such as hockey and football. I want to describe in detail what a concussion is. The symptoms it has with it and how it is treated. I also wanted to relate it to the interviewers and explain more about POTS syndrome and what that is as well. I’m not sure if I’m covering too many topics within this.. but, this is what I have right now.

I recently decided to change my research paper topic from my previous post. I now plan to talk about youth/teen concussions from sports. I plan to talk about the symptoms and how it effects the development of the brain. Also maybe why they are becoming so much more common than in years past. I'm not sure if i should narrow it down to concussions within a specific sport or just talk about all of the sports in general. I also plan on talking about POTS syndrome (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) If you get too many concussions some teens develop this which is like having a concussion for an extended time including symptoms. This is causing some teens and youth to not be able to be as physically active as they should be able to otherwise. For my research paper I plan to interview Katie Pogue who recently got POTS this last year from too many concussions in hockey. I could also possibly talk to Trainer John (Claire's dad) as he deals with most of the primary concussions in our school. I was interested in this because I myself have had at least two concussions in my hockey career and I am certain it has affected me and my ability to learn. If you could help with what direction to go in with all of this that would help greatly. Thanks!