Concussions, also called ‘mild traumatic brain injuries’, affect thousands of athletes yearly. Whether it’s from participating in competitive cheer leading, football, or soccer, getting hit on the head can have lasting consequences. Symptoms range from loss of consciousness, short-term amnesia, nausea and tinnitus (ringing in the ears). These symptoms can last anywhere from a few days to several weeks or longer, affecting the person in other ways such as problems with speaking, motor coordination, or memory loss.
Over time personality changes may occur. In both children and adults this can be due to headaches that are ongoing, making them irritable or short tempered.
Athletes are known for making light of ‘having their bell rung’, or appearing dazed or stunned, not wanting to admit they can’t continue playing. Even trained coaching or medical staff may not be fully aware of what to look for when evaluating the athlete because sometimes the athlete doesn’t exhibit or even mention symptoms. In the US, approximately 1.7 million people have sustained a traumatic brain injury and account for over 30 percent of all injury-related deaths.
Head injury expert, Dr. Kim Gorgens, a neuropsychologist at Colorado’s University of Denver, says that the impact of a concussion can deliver a g-force of 95 to the human body. The threshold is 85-90 g’s. G-force is a “unit of force equal to the force exerted by gravity”.
Coaches, medical staff, parents and most especially the athlete would be best served by technology that can help better understand how the athlete is impacted by a blow to the head.
Impact sensors aren’t new in sports but in recent years there has been greater focus on its uses to help prevent serious injuries. Canadian company Shockbox with their Impakt Protective product offers a lifetime history of head impact data for an athlete. Calgary’s SafeBrain Systems Inc. ($149.99) and the USA’s Brain Sentry are joined by GForceTracker to find ways to detect injuries sooner. There are approximately 265 million people playing soccer yearly according soccer’s worldwide governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Over 8 million of them are youths. Now is the time to implement changes to how concussions are dealt with.
Enter Ontario’s GForceTracker technology, which employs an advanced linear g-force and rotational impact sensor. The GForceTracker (GFT), a Certified Hit Count Product for hockey and lacrosse, is a durable monitoring system that provides real-time, quantitative data in a very small size. The size of a domino-playing piece, it fits in helmets for sports that require one, such as football, lacrosse and ice hockey.
For sports where a helmet would get in the way, such as soccer, it is placed in a headband. According to Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder Gerry Iuliano, the company first did their research on helmeted contact sports to see how they could help varsity (Canada’s version of the NCAA) athletes who participate in football and ice hockey. They have now turned their attention to non-helmeted sports, starting with soccer. They don’t have plans at this time to work on rugby or mixed martial arts, but perhaps they will in the future. See their revealing video here:
Their product is easy to use by individuals and teams. While in use by the athlete, their coach or medical staff administers the device. It provides real-time statistics by monitoring and measuring what’s going on for the athlete regarding the force, location and frequency of impacts taken. If they receive a blow to the head during their match, the g-force is measured.
If they take another blow to the head it is also measured and is tabulated to look for trends using a programmable threshold. If an athlete receives multiple blows, the training and medical staff will be able to see immediately and can decide whether or not the athlete should be permitted to continue playing in the match. Once a serious impact is taken, their sensor triggers an alarm. The flashing LED light that can’t be turned off by the player, requires assessment and review by the coaching and or medical staff before they can return playing or practicing.
GFT gives the medical staff proof positive that the athlete shouldn’t continue to participate until they are better. This is very wise because athletes never want to be substituted out of their match and sometimes don’t admit the severity of their injuries. The coach may take the word of their athlete that they’re fine and may keep them in the match longer than they should. GFT takes this decision away from the athlete who may try to tough it out, and gives it to realm of science and technology.