Stanford University is recording the level of impact a player experiences, whenever they come into contact with another player. The sports which have agreed to participate in this study are not only football, but also women's field hockey and lacrosse.
This is remarkable! There have been studies with microchips in helmets to help record data, but not mouthpieces. Helmets were difficult to use because they would shift during play, but mouthpieces stay pretty stable in the athlete's mouth. It is going to be very interesting to see the data collected in the 2011-2012 season and getting to see the recorded data in 2012. The researchers hope that the data will help determine the amount force generated upon impact and how it affects the injury experiences by the athlete. They hope that the recorded data from the mouthpiece will help to predict what kind of injury has occurred at the brain. This is because athletic trainers and physicians are unable to see the brain. However hooking the mouthpiece up to a computer, may be able to help athletic trainer and physician make a more concrete decision about what the next step should be to help to athlete to recover from the traumatic brain injury.
I believe that if this mouthpiece works the way that the researchers intend it to work, it will help change the face of concussion diagnosis and treatment. There will be no more, maybe they have a concussion, maybe they don't. We as athletic trainers always do our best to er on the side of caution when dealing with a head trauma, but with the ability to have a mouthpiece to help solidify our decision on the field, it could really help keep the athlete safe. Stanford is the only school to take part in this study, I do believe if this study shows positive results, that it would be beneficial for more schools and teams to participate in order to collect as much data as possible in order to determine more precise information for diagnostics. It'll be interesting to see where this research goes next!
A mouthpiece as a tool for measuring impact is something that I never really thought about. It really is amazing that an impact can be measured by it. This is really important at every level because it is hard to find the exact force of an impact on an athlete. There have been helmets that have come in the recent years that reduce concussions, but I have seen athletes obtain a concussion using the special concussion helmet anyways. The use of mouthguards will most likely give a more accurate representation of the amount of force that an athlete sustains and can work towards how to make a helmet that is better than the one that is in existance now. This can also help with regulations of hitting during practices as well as concussion research. I would like to see something like this in a school that I work at in the future. Hopefully, this study will be extended to other colleges and universities.
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