How can Sensors help NFL Players to Avoid Concussions

So, how was football invented in the first place? The sport of American football itself was originally new in the year 1892, it roots from two other sports, soccer and rugby. Which many had enjoyed long time popularity in many nations of the world. Not until the 1880s that a great rugby player from Yale University, Walter Camp, developed rule changing and slowly got rugby to be transformed into the a new game called American football. Camps was known as “ Father of American Football.” because he was an American football player, coach, sports writer and he also created the line of scrimmage and the system of downs. And Camp was one of the most important person in the early history of American football. The sport of rugby is like the first cousin of American football and one concern that is all in the family, is the long term impact of concussion.

The long term impact of concussion in rugby has caused a team in England, called  the sorensons, first to experiment new technology that could help protect the safety of it’s players and those of American football player. The sorensons have begin using poinere U.S system that provides detailed analysis of knox to the head. The stick on sensors that is the size of a band-aid, behind the ear which measures the amount, angle and severity of each blow. The sorensons was the first professional rugby team to test out the new technology to insure that the new technology actually works and help to avoid concussions in the future. According to a study from the Scents And Sensibility: A Molecular Logic of Olfactory Perception and the Extra Sensory Perception by Gershon Dublon and Joseph A. Paradiso, from scientific Americans. They both mention that there are sensors around us, and also it mentions about how our human brains view things differently, such as how we see from the reality to the external world. Concussion happens in many sports but mostly in football. American football has the highest rate of concussion of any other contact sport played in the U.S. It is hard to imagine today but 100 years ago, boxing was the most popular sport played in the U.S. More people went to some championship bouts than any other NFL stadium today. But for boxing it did not really go that well, there was a lot of reasons why, but one of the reasons is that, a lot of people see boxing as a barbaric sport because it had caused so many brain damage to boxing players.

After years of getting hit in the head, many boxers had developed dementia and depression as a part of a disease called dementia pugilistica, nowadays dementia pugilistica has a new name, CTE also known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which can lead to three symptoms: confusion, aggression and depression. And it is not just found in boxing but also in an increasing number of football players. A study by the Department of veteran affairs and Boston university found out that 87 out of 91 former NFL players tested has suffered from a brain disease, CTE. CTE is a brain disease that researchers these  days believe is caused by repetitive head trauma. Which brain scans can detect signs of CTE but it can also only be confirmed posthumously.

Recently former NFL player Ronny Jenkins has told CNN that he  has been suffering from CTE, which lead him to depression and suicidal instincts. The disease causes a protein called tau to form around blood vessels in the frontal lobe, during stage 2 sufferers may experience rage with impulsivity or depression, symptoms of stage 3 includes confusion of memory loss as the tau protein spread to other parts of the brain. Stage 4 is marked by dementia as the nerve cells in the brain dies, and during the final stages of the CTE, the brain withers to roughly half the size of a normal brain. A federal judge has approved 1 billion dollar settlement between the NFL and thousands of players, the money would go toward medical exams, concussion research and payment for damages.Every time when there is a football season during each year, we Americans are always excited to watch our favorite team to beat other teams. Americans enjoy watching football but they never enjoy when their team loses.

Maybe that is how NFL players thinks too, but instead on the losses of the game,  they enjoy playing football but they do not enjoy getting hit and having a concussion every time they get a hard hit to their heads. Many football players has retired from concussion, they start to lose memory loss and start to lose their minds and get all angry about everything. We know that a repeated history of concussion can lead to chronic changes in the brain function and structure. But even though football players who wears helmet to help shield their heads, the reality is that helmets are not designed to protect football players against concussions, only skull fractures. The brain of a human body is the most important complex organ. It produces our very own thoughts, feelings, action, memory and the experience of the world. More recently, researchers have experimented with attaching sensors to helmets, scapes and people skin.  One of the problems faced by NFL teams is the ability to identify when an athlete may have suffered concussion, that is why scientist have been testing the helmets and putting sensors in any size that can help the football players. According to Extra Sensory Perception by Gershon Dublon and Joseph A. Paradiso, from scientific Americans mentions that researchers have found  a device that was most useful and it has to be a special mouthguard. It contains sensors, especially accelerometers and gyroscopes, which are the same ones as the ones on your cell phones. With youth participation waning and football facing increased concerns over trauma, the future of the games could be more different, with scientists testing new experiments with helmets, to make helmets safer for American teens football players.Helmets were originally tend to help American football players to protect their heads, the study, that is organized by a group of researchers at the Florida center for Headache and Sports Neurology and the Florida State University College of Medicine has been tested for the effectiveness of 10 leading football helmets. About 37% of NFL players use schutt helmets, while 60% wears Riddles, according to the companies.

American football has the highest rate of concussions of any contact sport played in the U.S. whilst the NFL have attempted to reduce the risks of players by changing the rules and supporting researches into the next generation of protective gear. One of the problems faced by NFL teams is the ability to identify when an athlete may have suffered a concussion.The researchers have been testing out dummies, for helmet protection, some of the dummies wear helmets and some does not. And with sensors to help NFL players helmets, sensors to help measure linear and rotational response to a series of 12 mph impacts and has been tested for 300 times. American coaches has been trying to make football safer to play for NFL players. They have been using sensors to help them detect whether or not if NFL players are healthy enough to play in the game. Some NFL players will be wearing sensors in their helmets that will monitor and record in real time every blow and bump that they take to the head. It is like a paging system that alerts the team physicians if a hit rises above a certain threshold.

The headgear filled with sensors is the latest improvement in a protective technology that dates back in the 19th century. For the next several years, football helmets tended to be more built for leather with a small innovation such as a small holes that is in the ear flaps for better hearing improving upon the design. The Seahawks, coach Pete Carroll mentions that tackling is the system that they have been teaching and utilizing for the last 4 years of the seahawks. Seahawks tackling system features shoulder tackling and a renewed emphasis to take the head out of the tackling. Coach Carol says that he has found the new style of talking to being successful in the NFL, they are passionate about teaching this style of tackling because they desire to keep the standards of the game high and making the game as safe as possible.

The seahawks methods are a shoulder leverage tackling team, they have found that they can practice and drill without pads or helmets, they have been training and developing for the new safe tackling system in shorts and t-shirts. How they teach this new method of tackling is by that they were inspired by those people who played rugby around the world. Rugby players have taken the head out of the game and has been hitting on shoulder tackling. The seahawks tackles coaching points are that their eyes through the thighs, wrap and squeez, drive for 5 if necessary the ball carrier generally goes down immediately with seahawk tackles.Some high school football coaches has the football team wear paddings on the outside of their helmets to help them to prevent concussion. For example Midland Christian school, head football coach Greg McClendon is not taking any chances or any risks. He says that “as we learn more and more over the years about concussion, it is really showing more to be more repetitively.”

During the year all Varsity and JV football players are now wearing guardian caps over their helmets during practice, the padding gives football players extra padding on the outside of their helmets so it keeps one player from getting a concussion or a long-term effects. Study finds brain disease in 96% of former NFL players tested. Many young athletes have been dreaming of playing in the NFL but what most of them does not take into the consideration is the risk of brain disease. The NFL has been trying to solve the bain injuries by changing the rules but it is not possible. In theory confused players are no longer allowed to enter games. They moved the kick-off 5 yards down the fields so o alot more kickoffs become touchbacks. they’ve changed rules in term of head to head hits. On defense, you can not use your head or your helmets to use as a weapon, and if you are a running back, you can not also lead with your head to hit others players head. Banging heads are the easiest thing to target. They can not really get rid of concussions entirely, and sometimes concussions just happen randomly by incident plays.