A hot topic in trauma medicine today is the traumatic brain
injury (TBI). When the lay person thinks of a TBI they may imagine something
like a car crash with a huge mechanism of injury, loss of consciousness, and a
blood coming out of your ears as portrayed in Hollywood. However, what the lay
person may not realize is that a concussion also falls into the category of
TBI. A study done at Stanford University analyzes three common commercial
sensor technologies which interpret impact accelerations in sports, for example,
heading a soccer ball. Currently the sensors used to test severity of these
impacts and are placed on the skin behind the ear, in a mouth guard and inside
a skull cap. The sensor attached to stretchy skin behind the ear and within a
piece of apparel have a tendency to accelerate more rapidly than the skull
itself. This difference is attributed to false positive, high acceleration
values which do not depict the accurate forces felt by the head. In simple
terms, the sensors make it seem like the head is getting hit harder than it
actually is because they are not directly linked to the skull. Lyndia Wu, a
graduate student involved with the project, suggested the positions of the
sensors must be changed. A proposed location for new sensor technology would be
placed in the ear canal. It is important
today for athletes of all levels to know the risks of their sports and wear the
proper protective equipment. If helmets are designed based on an inflated acceleration
read by the common sensors, it could result in equipment that can withstand a
higher than expected impact while playing a sport. This seems better than
giving false negatives and designing less than satisfactory brain buckets. But
in science it’s all about precision... so new technology for understanding the
forces experienced by the brain during sports is needed.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/august/sensors-error-impact-083115.html
This is really cool! I love how it associates a numerical value to the force of the hit. I think the problem with concussion testing and proper care (especially) in athletes is that to many, continuing to play the game is more important than a concussion. Many athletes I have talked to about this specifically, say that in a championship, or even a big game, they will not tell their trainer of concussion symptoms such as headache or nausea, in order to keep playing the game. I have even heard of trainers letting athletes reenter the game if the athlete says, "I am fine." Three of the athletes I talked to about this were experiencing memory, attention, and learning difficulties after their head hit due to improper care. However, a numerical value that expresses the force will be harder to ignore, and will provide objective quantitative data that will be more difficult to ignore. Hopefully this will lead to an increase in the proper treatment of concussions!
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting research, and especially as an athlete, I think its very important to accurately identify concussions. Athletic trainers and coaches sometimes overlook the early signs of concussions in their athletes that can in turn lead to greater problems associated with education, knowledge, and overall attitudes (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26308118). Most athletes want to tough it out and continue playing the sports they love, but are not always informed of the greater risks. I think this research will help gain a better overall understanding.
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