FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Richard M. Greenwald
TWO-YEAR HEAD IMPACT STUDY REVEALS ON-FIELD IMPACT ENVIRONMENT IN FOOTBALL
Lebanon, NH - August 1, 2007 - Research and product development firm Simbex disclosed the preliminary conclusions of a multi-year research study to sporting goods giant Easton-Bell Sports, Inc. at their corporate headquarters in Van Nuys, California. The report came at the end of a two-year period of data collection of head impacts at fourteen sites throughout the United States, including: 7 NCAA Division I football programs, and 7 elite high school programs. The results will be used as the source of a scientific paper that will be released for review and publication later this year. Over 360,000 impacts were recorded using the Riddell Sideline Response System™ (SRS™). The impacts were recorded during 744 practices, scrimmages or games during the last two-years. More than 535 players wore helmets that had been fitted with the SRS™ technology. The SRS has the additional benefit to the players that their head impacts are being monitored, in real-time, by the medical staff on the sidelines. If a player receives an impact that is above a pre-set threshold, a pager alerts the medical staff to check the player for additional signs of head injury. Supported in part by the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research at the National Institutes of Health, this new technology was developed by Lebanon, NH based Simbex expressly to enable research into mild traumatic brain injury mechanisms. The HIT System™ incorporates advanced MEMS accelerometers and state-of-the art telemetry to provide vital, real-time, hit-by-hit data. The miniature impact monitoring system is a product of over ten years of research and development by company founder and President, Richard Greenwald, Ph.D. and Brown Medical School researcher J.J. Trey Crisco, Ph.D., Director of the Bioengineering Lab, Department of Orthopedics. "“This is the first time that we have been able to capture and analyze the nature and the range of impact signatures the players and the helmets experience during games and practices," said Greenwald. "There are many ways to predict the nature of the impacts, their violence and number through observation and modeling. But there is no longer a need for guesswork and assumptions when the impacts can be directly measured on the field." The system measures the linear acceleration of the head, the location of the impact and the temperature of the helmet over time. From these measurements, the system calculates the rotational accelerations, cumulative impacts over a given time, and measures used by head injury researchers: Gadd Severity Index (GSI) and the Head Injury Criterion (HIC). The impacts were associated by player level (college or high school), position, season (spring, pre-season training, regular season and post-season), and activity (game or practice). "One of the most exciting results of the study was what was revealed about the number, location and severity of impacts, by position," said Joseph Gwin, a research engineer that compiled and analyzed the data. During the two year period of study, the SRS™ measured the impacts that were associated with numerous medically diagnosed concussions. "The most interesting data that we recorded were the impacts that were associated with concussions," said Dr. Greenwald. "We analyzed the relationship among the various biomechanical variable most commonly associated with concussion injury. Then we looked for new injury tolerance metrics using advanced data analysis algorithms. The results of our investigations will help to expand the knowledge base underlying the cause of mild traumatic brain injuries." Simbex is carrying out similar studies in other sports including boxing, equestrian, soccer, skiing and ice hockey, and has expanded the technology for monitoring head acceleration during blast events for the US military. Easton-Bell Sports, parent company of Riddell and a premium brand for football protective gear, was privileged to the early results due to their ongoing support of the research. "Simbex tries to give an early look at the results of our research to all of our partners," said Dr. Greenwald. "We are very proud to be involved with Simbex and this research," said Thad Ide, VP of Research and Development for Riddell. "We believe that knowing the exact biomechanics of the previous thousand concussions will allow us to build equipment that will eliminate the next one."
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