- Guardian Cap%2C, a padded shell with foam rubber%2C, is a product touted as improving helmet safety
- Reducing concussions and their aftereffects is a major concern for college football and the NFL
- As companies compete for this safety%2C market, helmet standards arbiter warns of %27quick fixes%27
When the University of South Carolina opens preseason football practice Friday night, the plan is to equip the Gamecocks, including defensive star Jadeveon Clowney, with Guardian Caps. The padded shells, in polyurethane fabric, are designed to adapt to helmets and reduce impacts on the head.
There is controversy over whether caps violate helmet certification standards. But South Carolina tried 32 on linemen in the spring, liked them and bought 75 more to practice throughout the team, says athletic trainer Clint Haggard.
“I talked to our team doctors and talked about all this stuff, and I talked to a bunch of people across the country,” Haggard said. “And we’re still going to use them. … It looks like it will help.”
Player safety has become the slogan of college and professional football, with the NCAA and NFL also facing concussion lawsuits. This season in college football, punishments for “targeting,” meaning aiming, especially at the head or neck, with apparent intent beyond a tackle or a legal blockage, will include ejection. The NFL is requiring players to wear more pads and will penalize running backs who lead with the crown of their helmet.
Lee Hanson, founder of the company that makes the Guardian Cap, claims his product reduces head impacts “by up to 33%” in laboratory tests. He distributed the caps for testing in 2011, sold about 8,000 in 2012 ($55 individually with team discounts), and anticipated about 12,000 would be used by youth, high school and college teams. universities in the United States and Canada this year. Thirty-five states have schools and/or leagues using at least 20 Guardian Caps.
Guardian Caps have foam rubber-padded compartments placed on the top of the helmets, and Hanson claims that using these compartments dissipates energy better than a solid shell. One concern is whether soft cases might stick together or be easier to grip and cause neck injuries. Hanson says his caps “slip off each other.”
“Our goal,” says Hanson, “is to provide the best possible protection for a child. … If you want to protect your shoulders, you wear shoulder pads. And if you want to protect your head, you put on more padding.” padding over anything is better. “
Build a concussion-resistant football helmet and the world will beat a path to your door. Far from this pious objective, we are witnessing a resurgence of efforts aimed at protecting the brain.
*A Pennsylvania company offers additional head padding that includes body armor.
*Riddell, the official helmet of the NFL and co-defendant in the concussion lawsuits, is introducing an in-helmet sensor system this season that transmits when impacts exceed a player’s hit history, aimed at teams young people and high schools.
*Reebok has a new impact sensor that flashes when impacts exceed certain thresholds.
So why is the Colorado High School Activities Association warning that any school using Guardian Caps in games will not be in compliance with the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE), which defines helmet certification and warns groups to “research further” information” before using the caps at any time.
Indeed, Hanson says he lost an order of 500 caps from a California youth league and other orders from various U.S. school districts, and at least one league is returning its 300 in use.
“There are coaches, athletic trainers and parents who have seen Guardian on their kids over the last couple of years, and they have seen the number of injuries go down on those teams,” Hanson says. “Now are you going to tell them to take them off?”
Standards in question
Sensor manufacturers don’t claim to diagnose concussions; the sensors are presented as screening tools. Manufacturers of extra padding don’t claim to prevent concussions, but they do claim that the padding reduces impacts.
NOCSAE recently said additions to helmets could void certification and warned against “quick fixes.” He says the main focus should be limiting “unnecessary” hits and medical treatment of concussions.
“Equipment changes are probably fourth or fifth on the list of things that will make the biggest difference. Maybe even lower,” says Mike Oliver, executive director of NOCSAE.
NOCSAE establishes testing standards, which involve the use of sensors to measure impacts on headforms inside helmets. Helmet manufacturers do the testing. Oliver says each model requires its own testing and changes require re-certification.
“If you talk to any doctor, you’ll get 14 different opinions about what causes a concussion,” Hanson says. “We don’t know if it’s one big hit or if it’s a series of small hits. … We can prove scientifically that (Guardian Caps) reduces that amount of impact.”
But Oliver says the hoods are in “a little gray area” under NOCSAE’s position that a helmet addition that “changes or alters the protective system by adding or removing protective padding…or that changes or alters the geometry of the shell or adds mass to the helmet, whether temporary or permanent, voids the certification of conformity.
It’s absurd, says Haggard: “The way this thing was written, anything you put in it, whether it’s a face shield or something like that, falls into that category.”
Last year, Unequal Technologies of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, introduced “Kevlar-reinforced” helmet padding. The padding, with a sticky surface, installs over existing pads. Unequal still has this product. But this year it also has padding designed to be placed inside the helmet but not affixed, the Gyro (at $79.95). There is also a padded shell, the Dome ($89.95).
Robert Vito, president of Unequal, said Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick would use the skull cap, about 100 NFL players use Unequal head padding and about 10,000 football players all levels use it. Vito is having trouble with NOCSAE.
“Blindly saying that anything in, on or around the helmet will now void the certification needs to be retracted,” says Vito, who urges NOCSAE to make sure “we’re not leaving a lot of quality products behind.” “
Haggard says the linemen at South Carolina with the Guardian Caps in the spring had no concussions.
“They could make a difference in the perceived impact,” he says. “Actually, some of our linebackers and some of our fullbacks came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I want to try this too.’ “
At the June annual meeting of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, Kevin Guskiewicz, a concussion researcher at the University of North Carolina, told attendees that there is no such thing as a concussion-resistant helmet. He said that although helmets prevent skull fractures, he added, the brain continues to “toss around” after a hit.
“So these neurons are still stretched,” Guskiewicz said, “86 billion neurons that we have in the human brain… There are no studies… to show that in fact these devices (extra padding of the helmet) reduce concussions.”
Sensors to monitor hits
The blows are coming. Various devices are designed to detect and measure them.
Riddell’s InSite Impact Response System includes a sensor located in the helmet liner that transmits when certain impact levels are exceeded to a portable “alert monitor” on the sidelines. The software stores data on players’ hit exposure history. It’s priced at $150 per headset (if you already have a headset) and the monitor is free with 12 headset units ($200 if purchased separately). The product is an offshoot of Riddell systems used by university teams and researchers.
X2 Biosystems of Seattle offers the X-Patch, a small patch equipped with a sensor to wear behind the neck. It transmits hit data to a mobile device. Now used by college athletes in research, it will be sold commercially in 2014, says Rich Able, the company’s co-founder.
“Our tools will not provide a diagnosis,” he said. “Our tools simply provide data to people who are highly knowledgeable about head injuries.”
Reebok’s new CheckLight ($150) features an impact sensor in a skullcap. An LED light on the rear is designed to flash yellow or red (more severe) when impacts reach certain thresholds. It does not transmit data but displays the number of shots received during a training or match.
“It’s just an extra pair of eyes…to remove the athlete from the field as soon as possible after a light goes off to evaluate the athlete,” says Bob Rich, Reebok’s director of advanced concepts.
Chris Nowinski, co-founder of the Sports Legacy Institute in Boston, advocates a “Hit Count” to minimize head impacts, especially among young people: “Just try to have fewer yellows and reds (with CheckLight ) is important.”
Patrick Kersey, medical director of national youth organization USA Football, says the sensors are promising but not yet proven.
“A lot of the new products we have are very exciting,” he says. “The problem we have in the medical world is that we don’t have validation as to whether these are actually useful tools – or whether they are neat, flashy tools eye ?”
