Anxiety Disorders appear on the Baseball Diamond
Anxiety Disorders appear on the Baseball Diamond
While historically, a disabled athlete has been anticipated to have been injured, as of late, anxiety disorders have claimed players' field time and altered the scope of anxiety disorders in society. Public exposure of panic disorders is on the rise, and with baseball players being afflicted by them, the diagnoses are in question. Are athletes treading the line of cop-out and serious social disability?
Stress is an insurmountable characteristic of a successful career as a professional athlete. In recent years, it has been the cause of several MLB players' appearance on disabled lists rather than the field. Joey Votto of Cincinnati cited it as the cause for his June 2009 placement on the disabled list, and many other players have joined him. Some medical professionals have expressed concern that as anxiety disorders become more prevalent in sidelined athletes, the serious nature of panic disorders will also be sidelined, as overdiagnosis may become an issue.
A medical history is required to demonstrate a panic disorder, and medical professionals have begun to speculate that some of the anxiety disorders that players have cited for their D-listing have not been legitimate, as anxiety disorders don’t develop overnight.
Nevertheless, the severity of anxiety disorders cannot be underestimated, and while their prevalence in the MLB is on the rise, this may not be a credible measure of these disorders' occurrence.
Filed under Anxiety Disorder by beth
