One of the best ways to avoid a concussion is to stay clear of activities where you may hit hour head. That seems to be the opinion of a quarter of parents, who said they will not let their kids play in football due to concerns over concussions, according to a recent Truven Health Analytics and NPR Health Poll. Continue reading Concussion Avoidance
Tag: head injury
Head Light System
Reebok is introducing a new light for the head, but it isn’t one that allows the wearer to see where he/she is going. Rather the CheckLight is meant to determine if an athlete has taken an impact to the head. The light is mounted to a skull cap that can be worn beneath any type of traditional sports helmet or just on its own.
The cap contains a tri-axial accelerometer and a gyroscope, to measure linear and rotational acceleration, respectively, while a built-in microprocessor analyzes their output whenever an impact occurs. This can help coaches and athletes stay in check with what is happening following a potentially serious impact.
An App to Diagnosis a Concussion
Of the hundreds of thousands of apps that are available for the Apple iOS and the Google Android, how many are truly useful? That depends on how you look at it, but a better question might be how many have the potential to save a life? There are not many, but that trend is changing as it is becoming more obvious that smartphones and tablets are here to stay.
The Concussion Recognition and Response app from PAR Inc. is one such app and is designed specifically for coaches and parents to help them identify if an individual is exhibiting the signs and symptoms of a suspected concussion in under five minutes.
Football Mouth Guard Detects Injury
Mouth guards just got smarter. Those bite guards that protect teeth and impact for football players on the field may soon have some electronics built in. A team at Stanford University is testing a prototype mouth guard with sensors built inside to offer protection, but also to determine any brain injury during practice and games.
Sensors inside the mouth guard will detect movement and impact to provide insight into how different types of blows affect the brain. Even now, science is still learning about how the brain reacts to such trauma. Researchers hope to use this data to not only detect and diagnose injury, but to further research on brain trauma, and the threshold where impact becomes harmful.
Football players have used sensors imbedded in equipment such as helmets for several seasons. The Stanford University researchers and the Seattle-based X2 Impact, which made the bite guards, aim for this to be a less expensive (and possibly more effective) replacement to helmets wired with sensors. Helmets are said to be faulty because they can shift during a game.
The football team at Stanford University is currently testing the mouth guards. The researchers plan to deploy the new protective gear to the Stanford women’s field hockey and lacrosse teams.
X2Impact Official Website
[Via Stanford University School of Medicine: For study of concussions, Stanford athletes use high-tech mouthpiece to record head impact]