National Football League, NFL

2022: NFL athletes start using smart caps with sensors to reduce head injuries

On February 11, 2022, athletes began using smart caps with sensors to reduce head injuries. High-tech devices with artificial intelligence will help track the strength, place and severity of blows during the game.

In American football and in a number of other dangerous sports, cases are very common when experts examine the brains of former players, they find in many of them a disorder called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) - a type of brain degeneration caused by many years of repeated head injuries and concussions. As a result, a tragic situation often arises, which can cause aggressive behavior, memory loss and cognitive functions, and in some cases, violence, depression and suicide.

Aaron Hernandez was only 27 years old when he died. The former New England Patriot was convicted of killing a man in a fit of anger, after which he committed suicide in his prison cell in 2017. Experts posthumously diagnosed him with CTE, as well as a number of players who died in the same tragic circumstances. The study found that in a brain study of deceased former football players, 87% of college players and 99% of NFL players were found to have CTE - a condition previously considered rare.

Athletes began to use smart caps with sensors to reduce head injuries

That is why researchers are in a hurry to protect players from this disease. University of North Carolina players were equipped with smart caps with built-in sensors that record player data, including speed, direction, strength, location, and severity of game beats. Jason Michalik, who heads the school's concussion research program, says data collected with kappa can be used to make important changes to football rules.

For starters, they can help researchers see where the most dangerous blows occur - and what can be done to reduce their number.

According to Gregory V. Stewart, co-director of the concussion treatment program for sports concussions at the Tulane School of Medicine, smart caps are just another tool to help understand what happens with a shock brain injury.

Stewart says the caps can also help collect data on another injury prevention tool. Researchers such as himself study helmets for specific positions, which can be made with additional linings in those places where the player most often receives blows.

Some problems are more difficult to solve than others. Games of special teams and kicking the ball remain dangerous even after changing the rules, which means that the search for alternatives to kicking the ball and hitting can significantly help in preventing injuries. Players are also at risk of concussion when they receive two strokes located close to each other. For example, when a player receives a strong blow, and then hits his head on the ground for several seconds. This, Stewart says, is more difficult to prevent by changes in the rules, because capturing and falling to the ground are embedded in the very nature of the game.

It is not yet clear how much smart caps will affect the future of football. By February 2022, they are worn by Tar Heels players, as well as players from the University of Alabama, the University of Wisconsin and the University of Washington. A number of NFL teams also use them.^[1]

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