For decades, players in the National Football League have met with such a force that some spent periods of time unsure of who was president or how many fingers the team doctor was holding up. Now, there is finally a more accurate way of determining if a player has been hurt.
Having already developed a concussion-sensing technology for the military, Dr. Dave Borkholder created a Linx Impact Assessment System (IAS) as a way to measure the impact of sports injury.
“Being in the space of measuring the unseen impact of concussive injuries, we saw the need for the Linx Impact Assessment System in the athletic marketplace,” Borkholder said. “In developing Linx IAS, we adapted our battlefield solution for the playing field so that athletes everywhere can benefit from our sensor technology.”
Borkholder and his small Rochester, New York-based company BlackBox Biometrics, Inc. parlayed a sensor he perfected in 2011 for the US military called a Blast Gauge Blast System into what it is on today’s athletic field.
Linx IAS is a small device worn on the head in a specially designed headband or skull cap that measures the force of an impact and sends that data to a mobile device. The severity of the impact is communicated through an Impact Assessment Score, a color-coded and numeric scoring system. Behind the scenes, Borkholder, a Rochester Institute of Technology associate professor of electrical and microsystems engineering, enlisted a local mobile app developer to help create Linx IAS by using Apple’s iBeacon technology.
The app can be activated on smart phone or tablet to alert the user of when an athlete has received a moderate or severe impact.
“It’s designed so parents and coaches don’t have to keep the app open and their phones unlocked while at a game, but are still able to get notifications on athletes they follow,” said developer Scott Terry of Rochester-based Envative. “They will then potentially launch the application, which will initiate the retrieval of the full details of the impact and send it to the cloud database for storage. Others associated with that athlete will be notified through push notifications.”
Concussions have been a hot topic for parents who must choose whether to allow their children to participate in contact sports. Several players walked away from the game this year, at a time considered to be early in their career. The departure of Tennessee Titans quarterback Jake Locker, San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland, and Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Jason Worilds sent a ripple effect of concern throughout the league.
Because of the severity of injury, the league moved kickoffs forward to minimize the number of returns. The theory is that fewer returns means fewer violent collisions. The number of documented concussions has decreased slightly over time (from 261 diagnosed in 2012 to 228 in 2013), and the league showed its concern by establishing a protocol that calls for sideline assessments.
The problem seems to be how to accurately determine whether a player is indeed concussed.
“The diagnosis and management of concussion is complicated by the difficulty in identifying the injury as well as the complex and individual nature of managing this injury,” the protocol states.
Dr. Elizabeth M. Pieroth, contributing columnist on NFL Evolution.com, said in a recent column that “We need athletes to tell their coaches, athletic trainers or parents about any symptoms that indicate they might have suffered a concussion. We absolutely do not want them to hide their symptoms and continue to play.”
By using Linx IAS, a player could not hide symptoms. Coaches (and parents) would know the severity of a blow to the head immediately after impact.
“This puts previously unattainable information in users’ hands to make educated decisions about player health and refine performance techniques,” Borkholder said.
Linx IAS is applicable for any sport for which a player could use the system, helmeted or not, Borkholder said, including lacrosse, ice hockey, soccer, baseball, skiing, and biking.
Edited by
Ken Briodagh
