Archive for concussions

On top of the obvious ill-effects of traumatic brain injuries, we can add class-action lawsuits to the list. The Illinois High School Association is facing a lawsuit of their own, one also involving concussions, and a legal suit they’ve been involved in since November of last year. The suit against a high school organization is the first of its kind, as previously only collegiate and professional football have been faced with legal action. Where the National Football League will soon be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to former players due to long-term concussion effects, not every governing body or football organization is capable of doing so.

Via the Chicago Tribune, word broke the IHSA filed their first response to the lawsuit, hoping the suit will be dismissed, calling it “a misguided effort that threatens high school football.” The lawsuit does not seek any monetary compensation to previous victims, but rather one to force better prevention and immediate medical care for both games and practices. The closest thing money chasing in the suit is the plaintiff including a provision within the suit for the IHSA to pay for medical testing of previous high school football players going to back to 2002. The suit doesn’t make demands such as the Mayo Clinic recommended CT scan, just to take action in both prevention and treatment. Even if it something as basic as the NFL’s sideline Baseline Test, action is clearly required.

Centered around the IHSA’s desire to see the suit thrown out is the cost of the medical staff and testing. IHSA Director Marty Hickman believes the cost would hurt the less-well off schools in the state, and was quoted saying the sport would turn into “haves and have nots.” Another argument on behalf of the IHSA is in their words within the response “would be unwieldy.” The response goes to to say “If a high school … fails to have a court-ordered medical professional at a football practice, how will such a violation of the Court’s injunction be remedied? Sanction the IHSA? The local school board? The principal? The athletic director? The coaches? All of the above?”

Perhaps no argument is lazier than the “slippery slope” that the IHSA is bringing to the table. The good news is they aren’t claiming or feigning ignorance on the matter of concussions, just crying poor. While showing any semblance of favoritism towards a particular sport isn’t ideal either — someone can get a concussion on the track, the volleyball court, etc. — this suit is particular in its desire to see better attention in the football realm. The IHSA reports having an annual budget of $10 million for over 40 sports and activities across all levels of high schools and claim court mandated would essentially break the bank. For an organization with a television broadcast deal with Comcast/CSN Chicago, the lack of available funds seems to be a weak defense. If the money truly isn’t available for additional medical staff or improved helmets, perhaps a better mouth guard, one already partnered with multiple collegiate teams, is the first step in the right direction. The first hearing is set for 10 days from now.

(Header image via IHSA)

Since we last visited with startup i1 Biometrics, developers of the Vector mouth guard which measures the level and location of each hit on the football field, the demand and the market for their product has grown significantly. Yesterday i1 announced a new partnership with Texas A&M football. Already partnered with the University of Kansas, Louisiana State University as well as the University of South Carolina, i1 Biometrics is making strides to measure potentially concussion inducing levels of impacts.

The Vector mouth guard itself measures rotational and linear impacts and then sends the impact data in real time to to the coaching and training staff where it is stored in their cloud computing for easy access. Notifications can be sent to mobile devices for immediacy or the information gleaned from the mouth guards may be accessed online through a phone or computer.

In a joint study between Harvard University and Boston University last year covering 734 NCAA football players from the 2013 season, the concussion numbers are jarring, and not just the speed of the impacts. The players claimed six potential concussions and 21 “dings” for each confirmed concussion.

Given what is already known about the long-term effects of concussions — and even more alarming is what is unknown — seeing front-line collegiate football teams taking things more seriously is a step in the right direction.

Major League Soccer has announced they will begin implementing the concussion tracking device xPatch next season in order to further study the effects of head trauma on their players.

The xPatch was recently used in a rugby match by the London-based Saracens (no relation to Friday Night Lights character Matt Saracen, unfortunately). Some in London have dismissed the patches, calling them gimmicky, but Edward Griffith, the Saracens CEO, responded tersely saying, “It is the furthest thing from a gimmick. This is not something we just thought would be good to try out last weekend. This has been nine months in the planning. We have set aside a budget of £350,000 for it for next season funded by the Drake Foundation because we believe wholly in the significance of the research. I don’t want to be visiting these players in 20 or 25 years time in a hospital where they are suffering from dementia or some other neurological condition.”

The xPatch, made by Seattle-based X2 Biosystems, contains a gyroscope and accelerometer that are encased in plastic. They are 1” by 3” and placed on a bone behind the players ear and taped down for games. The xPatch records all of the head trauma a player experiences and sends the information to trainers via an app.

A device like the xPatch may have been able to better track the head trauma former MLS star Taylor Twellman experienced during his career (he retired after suffering his sixth concussion). Twellman has since committed to donating his brain after his death for concussion reasearch and has his own foundation, Think Taylor, to raise money and awareness for concussion prevention.

Further implementation of the device could also help prevent scenarios like the one that occurred during the NFL playoffs on January 3rd, when the Ravens Courtney Upshaw had a rare clean sack of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who’s helmet bounced off the turf when he went down.

Roethlisberger returned to the game five minutes later after having his neck and shoulders tested and going through the NFL concussion protocol. He looked shaky when he returned to the huddle and proceeded to throw an interception on his first snap, causing some to speculate that he returned to the game too soon.

Dr. Matt Matava of the NFL Physician Society explained to the Guardian previously that X2 Biosystems technology, “has allowed us to accurately diagnose concussions immediately following an injury [about six to eight minutes after a hit]. The software also allows us to compare the players’ injury date to their baseline in order to objectively assess changes in mental status.” All 32 NFL teams currently use X2’s concussion management software.

The hope is that the technology becomes unobtrusive enough for players of all contact sports to use during games to detect in-game head trauma and track the sub-concussive impacts a player experiences over the course of his career. Considering the tragic deaths of former NFL stars Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, and the nightmare that the NFL concussion settlement has become, it’s a breakthrough that can’t come soon enough.

(Image via Bay Area Bias)