Concussion Protection Capabilities
Developing helmets that can offer better protection against concussions has been a priority and a rapidly advancing development among researchers in the wake of the recent NFL concussion settlement. In addition, the growing spectrum of new types of collision data has helped equipment designers make tremendous strides in the advances of the protective materials and shock absorption systems inside of football helmets.
Innovative designs and advanced polymers may soon offer improved degrees of protection against mild to moderate brain injuries on the field of play. Advances tested and proven for NFL players are likely to trickle down into helmets manufactured for players at all levels – to include the NCAA, high school varsity, and pee-wee youth leagues.
A Look at Current Helmet Protection and New Innovations on the Horizon
Up to this point, the NFL has been reluctant to endorse the use of any particular helmet or any claims of injury prevention by the helmet manufacturers. Nevertheless, modern efforts to reduce the risk of brain injury have been amped up in recent years and show promising signs of improvement. Improved gameplay analytics have shown that glancing, rotational impacts caused by multiple tacklers in pursuit of a ball carrier can cause the brain to actually twist or “spiral” inside the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds it.
This particular discovery provides evidence that a concussion can be caused or exacerbated by this type of spiraling motion. As a result, helmet testing standards have been adjusted to take these types of forces into account. In the past, research and testing focused only on direct, linear blows to the head and did not properly incorporate this additional variable that is very much a real part of gameplay.
New Technology May Help Reduce Direct and Spiraling Forces Experienced in Football
In 2003, a New Hampshire–based company launched a research tool called the Head Impact Telemetry System (HITS). This tool helps to test the impact of rotational acceleration, or the “spiraling” effect that extreme, angular blows can have on concussions, and can analyze movement and impact during actual gameplay. The development of this test allowed helmet designers to build and test new devices and materials to help protect against this type of impact in addition to direct blows.
Biomechanical engineer and UCLA professor Vijay Gupta recently developed a new polymer which may notably increase football helmets’ ability to protect players from concussions without requiring any major redesign efforts. After he began working as a professor, Gupta wanted to use his expertise in materials science, mechanical engineering and bioengineering to help protect the brain from the forces that cause concussions and traumatic brain injuries. Gupta has created a polymer that can effectively diminish the force of helmet-to-helmet hits on the football field, as well as blast shockwaves from explosive devices in combat.
Ghatu Subhash, an engineering professor at the University of Florida (UF) at Gainesville, recently engineered special fluid-filled pouches that may increase a helmet’s protective capabilities against glancing blows and the spiral effect. Subhash’s new research includes tests that show these pouches can protect the brain from the rotational or shearing force of off-center hits on helmets – a type of protection not offered by any helmets to date. Providing this type of protection has posed a steep, long-term challenge to engineers and equipment manufacturers. Subhash said:
“The fluid-filled cells within the helmet respond, so no matter the angle of impact, the helmet automatically protects any part of the head.”
In modern football helmets, the implementation of air (inflation) based systems, coupled with foam /gel inserts, may help to reduce the amount of energy transmitted to a player’s skull. Considerable research is still needed, but the general consensus seems to be that severe concussions have the potential to cause life-altering injuries and that better technology to minimize or prevent these injuries is needed to effectively protect football players.
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