Saturday, August 27, 2011

Study of Football Head Collisions - Sensors in Helmet


Practice for the U of R football team is underway this week. Ten players will be wearing specially designed helmets that could ultimately help to reduce dementia in NFL players down the road.

There's been growing attention focused on the impact of concussions in the NFL. Now U of R Medical Center concussion specialist Dr. Jeffrey Bazarian wants to know the cumulative impact to all these hits.

Dr. Bazarian says, "What we're trying to see is the amount of force over the season these with special brain scans in the beginning of the season and repeat it at the end of the season."

To do that, 10 members of the of of the U of R Yellowjackets are wearing helmets with built in sensors. Players like captain John Whiting got a baseline brain scan before the season began.

Whiting says, "They did an MRI took some blood, at the end of the season we'll do the same thing and at the end we'll see the impact to the head and what it has throughout the season."

Players turn in their helmets after each practice and game and the information is recorded. Whiting had 64 hits today.

Read more at: http://www.whec.com/sports/stories/S2252296.shtml?cat=571

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