Wearables monitor concussion risk, but few teams take advantage

Startups as well as big companies like Reebok and Riddell are making wearable products that can monitor risk of concussion, but few professional or amateur sports teams are using them, according to Scott Kirsner in The Boston Globe.

Riddell, for example, makes Insite smart-helmet technology for football teams that includes a player unit, alert monitor, and player management software. The player unit includes a five-zone sensor and onboard electronics to evaluate the intensity of each impact. When impact thresholds are exceeded, the player unit, programmed with the player’s skill level and position information, communicates with the alert monitor, which alerts sideline personnel to player name and time of impact. Each alert monitor can support up to 150 players. Information can be uploaded to a computer running player management software to build an alert-history database.

For its part, Reebok makes Checklite—a cap with sensors that continuously measure impacts in a variety of sports and notifies coaches, trainers, parents and the athletes themselves of impact severity. It can be worn with or without a helmet and provides information about the accelerations the head experiences. And a startup called Jolt Sensor—whose founder wrestled and played football, soccer, and baseball—is planning to launch a device that can measure impacts in multiple sports.

However, according to Kirsner in the Globe, such technologies experience weak sales. He quotes a youth lacrosse coach as saying of the technology, “There isn’t a ton of information out there, especially at the youth coaching levels.” And professionals may avoid the technology because they don’t want to be yanked from a game if their impact levels get too high. And players simply may not want to contemplate the possibility of injury.

In addition, writes Kirsner, companies may need to do more to prove their technologies are accurate and effective. He quotes Julie Soriero, MIT’s director of athletics, as saying, “We want the data to be a little bit more conclusive.”

See related article “NBMC tackles human performance monitoring, medical diagnostics.”