New Helmet to Help Determine Impacts in Brain Injuries
Simbex LLC and their high-tech helmet is helping sports teams and the military learn more about head injuries. They have been awarded a $3.6 million research grant to facilitate the study of brain injuries. The helmet contains sensors that measure and record the force of impacts to the head. It is already in use by many football teams looking to detect and prevent injuries. The military has been given 20 combat helmets with the system. The Head Impact Telemetry System, HIT, includes a helmet, data transmitter and a console that detects, records and analyzes helmet impacts, sending a warning to a coach or military commander of an impact that has the potential to cause a concussion or traumatic brain injury. The goal is to improve the understanding of mild traumatic brain injury to develop new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat the injuries. The inventors of the helmet said, “The ability to capture large amounts of field data on head impacts and to correlate those impacts with actual diagnosed concussions and the clinical data associated with those injuries is unprecedented, and will certainly lead to new findings and opportunities for preventing and treating sports-related brain injury.”
