investigating the feasibility of instituting such a system for next season. Since then, the NFL has also held its long-awaited committee meetings on player safety in New York, where much of the discussion focused on ways to prevent concussions while also warning players about the inherent risks of playing the sport.

Now, according to The Washington Post, the league is on the verge of pilot-testing the installation of three types of accelerometers (in mouthpieces, earpieces, and helmets) to see if accurate neuroanalysis can occur during games — possibly allowing coaching staffs to isolate and diagnosis the severity of concussions within minutes — as well as gathering unprecedented long-term data on how players become injured and what’s happens to them in the ensuing weeks. (What can happen in the ensuing seconds is often painfully obvious.)

It’s an intriguing move that certainly would have wide-ranging implications, if the data collection methods be developed in an efficient and practical way, so that coaching staffs and players get useful, game-relevant information in a timely manner.

The fight has been on for years to create a better (read: safer) football helmet, with companies looking at sorts of radical designs and materials. For example, the Bulwark, designed by Michael Princip, institutes a layer of pre-molded foam that helps absorbs shocks when a player takes a blow to the head.

These kind of projects, often small-scale and self-funded, will become more critical over the next few months and years as we slowly come to grips with the fact the concussions are likely impossible to avoid in football. Instead, it’s the right move to focus on how they happen and how we can lessen their injurious effects.

With the proper technicians and funding, these impact sensors should be the best first step down that road.

Image: Flickr/schluesselbein, CC

See Also:

• Neurologists Call for Strict Sports-Concussion Guidelines
• For Football Players, Concussions Can Be More Harmful
• For Young Athletes, Concussions Pose a Growing Problem
• The Ongoing Battle Against Concussions – Wired.com
• With Proper Screening, Concussed Athletes Sit Out Longer

Authors: Erik Malinowski

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