ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the development of concussion and CTE as issues in sport, through the lens of medicalization. It argues that medicalization processes are evident at three distinct levels: namely at a conceptual, institutional and interactional level. Consequently we see: 1) that medical vocabularies have come to structure public understanding of concussion through, e.g. discussions of the power of neuroscience to identify CTE; 2) that medical practices are used to “manage” concussion through, e.g., the institutionalization of diagnostic and return to play protocols; and 3) that medical actors have become centrally placed in the as the ultimate “cure” of the social problem of concussion through, e.g., and assertion of the primacy of “individual clinical judgement” in interpreting and applying concussion guidelines. The paper explores the dynamics and consequences of these processes, highlighting how the unevenness of these process with medicalization at the conceptual level being considerably more extensive that the efficacy of treatment at the interactional level would warrant. Moreover, it suggests that the disparity between, and the competing evidence across different domains is partly responsible for the heightened level of social concern in relation to concussion and CTE. The chapter concludes with some practical reflections on the consequences of this medicalization process, locating the enabling and constraining effects within a framework of medical ethics.
