Category Archives: General
Helmet HALO Technologies Introduces New Tool Designed to Improve Tackling & Blocking Techniques
The new HITRight sensor from Helmet HALO Technologies is “an on-field, in-helmet teaching aid that helps train young football players to use proper ‘heads up’ placement, resulting in greater player awareness of form when tackling and blocking.” Whenever the player’s head is positioned into a downward direction, the HITRight sensor sounds an audible alert. Keeping the player’s head in the proper position minimizes head and neck injuries.
Prior to the development of the HITRight sensor, impact data was gathered after the fact. Now, with HITRight, real time input can be accumulated for use in improving “proper tackling and blocking techniques.”
The HITRight sensor device is attached directly to the inside of the helmet. Whenever the audible alarm goes off, the player knows that “they are not in proper ‘heads up’ form.”
Says Jerome Tomlin, President of Helmet HALO Technologies, “Minimizing the number of concussions and spinal injuries incurred on the youth football field begins with coaching and reinforcement of correct tackling and blocking technique.”
Tomlin emphasizes that the use of the HITRight sensor “can be that personal and continual on-field coach for each player, whether it is running drills, playing a scrimmage or a game.”
This new teaching aid sells for $59.99, and can be purchased this summer at www.eastbay.com.
View this video for a demo of the HITRight sensor –
Posted in Football, General, High School, Products
Tagged head injuries, sensor, technology
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Panelist Talks About ‘Overlooked’ Neck Injuries, and the Real Victim of Concussions
(Editor’s note: Here’s a snippet of the coverage from the Sports Lawyers Association annual meeting in Atlanta last week. Look for more coverage in the June issue of Concussion Litigation Reporter.)
On the opening day of the Sports Lawyers Association annual meeting last week, Dr. Kevin E. Crutchfield, the Director of the Comprehensive Sports Concussion Program at LifeBridge Health in Baltimore, MD, proved to be a very insightful panelist during the discussion, raising two interesting issues.
The first centered on the connection between neck injuries and concussions. Crutchfield said that neck injuries frequently go undiagnosed after an athlete has been diagnosed with suffering a concussion to the detriment of the patient. He almost seemed to imply that, invariably, an athlete who suffers a concussion has likely suffered a neck injury. And in some cases, the reverse may apply.
Second, Crutchfield said the athlete he sees the most are the “beatees” from the high school and college football programs, rather than the “beaters.” The elite athletes don’t suffer concussions with the same frequency as those practice players, who fill out the squads.
NFL Reaches Out to the Scientific Community with More Cash
The National Football League has announced a webinar that will address the GE-NFL Head Health Challenge on Wednesday, May 22 at 3:00PM ET.
The session is “aimed at further engaging the scientific community,” according to the league. It will focus specifically on Challenge I, which offers up to a $10 million award for a proposal that would advance the understanding and diagnosis of traumatic brain injury.
Participants will include DR. Kevin Guskiewicz, Chair, Department of Exercise and Sport Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a member of the NFL Head, Neck & Spine Committee, and Mark A. Phillips, Chief Marketing Officer, GE Healthcare, Healthcare Systems. Interested participants may register by clicking:
http://www.ninesigma.com/ViewEmail.aspx?SendId=0ee36fbb-b55a-4431-8b41-e995cdbb8216
In March, GE and the NFL announced the Head Health Initiative, a four-year, $60 million partnership “to improve the safety of athletes, members of the military and society overall.”
