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Wednesday, October 13, 2004At Simbex, a Lebanon, N.H.-based company, researchers have developed a wired helmet system called HITS — Head Impact Telemetry System — that reads the intensity of impacts in terms of "G," or gravity forces, and alerts trainers when a player has taken a strong hit to the head. "We put six sensors in the helmet that have little springs so it measures the movement of the head, not the helmet, during impact," explained Rick Greenwald, president of the company. The data is stored in the helmet after a hit and then beamed by radio waves to a computer on the sidelines. If the computer senses that the impact is over a certain level, it will send a beeper signal to the trainer. Then the trainer can decide whether or not to pull a player from the game to examine him. "Most football players won't tell their trainers that they got hit," said Greenwald. "They don't want to come out of the game. But this lets the trainer know directly." And then there's a computer test that screens the mental functioning of the athlete after an injury, a system that's used at our town's high school this year: The 20-minute program, called ImPACT, measures verbal and visual memory, reaction time and processing time. Trainers have athletes take the test before the season begins to learn their baseline and then look for differences in their score following an injury or incident on the field. This way trainers can pick up on any small change in the mental performances of their athletes and hopefully detect any concussion. Meanwhile, Lovell is trying to understand the exact effects of a football-related concussion on the brain. posted by Sydney on 10/13/2004 08:34:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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