Sports Legacy Institute Launches Hit Count Cert. Program

Source: Sports Legacy Institute

New York City - January 27, 2014 -The non-profit Sports Legacy Institute (SLI) announced a major advance in the effort to prevent concussions and brain damage in contact sports today with the launch of theHit Count® certification program after two years of development, which was unveiled at a press conference at the 2014 Super Bowl Media Center in New York City.

Hit Count® builds on the progress that head sensor device companies have made in developing devices that can measure acceleration of the head. Current products used on the field are focused on alerting coaches, medical professionals, and parents when a potential concussive impact occurs.

Inspired by Pitch Counts baseball, which set limits to the number of times a player throws from the mound to prevent arm injury, Hit Count® Certified Devices will have a second function that measures and "Counts" impacts that exceed the Hit Count® Threshold, set by a committee of leading scientists, with the goal of minimizing brain injury.

"Research using sensor devices has revealed that each year in the United States, there are over 1.5 billion impacts to the heads of youth and high school football players," said Chris Nowinski, Founding Executive Director of SLI who launched the Hit Count® initiative in 2012 with SLI Medical Director Dr. Robert Cantu. "Most hits are unnecessary and occur in practice. By utilizing Hit Count® certified products as a teaching tool for coaches and a behavior modification tool for athletes, we can eliminate over 500 million head impacts next season."

Committee member Gerry Gioia, PhD, of Children's National Medical Center and George Washington University School of Medicine, unveiled that the Hit Count® Threshold will be set at the subconcussive level of 20 g's of linear acceleration. "This is the beginning of a major research and public health effort to limit brain trauma in sports. While current science does not provide a "safe" or "unsafe" Hit Count®, our goal is to eventually provide clear guidance for coaches and parents. We will need the youth sports, sensor manufacturer, and medical science communities to work together to provide reliable answers."

Hit Count® Certified products will go through a rigorous test protocol developed by the University of Ottawa Neurotrauma Impact Laboratory in conjunction with engineers from the six Hit Count® Initiative sponsors, including Battle Sports Science, G-Force Tracker, i1Biometrics, Impakt Protective, MC10, and Triax.

"Head sensor devices involve complex technology, and many sensors on the market today are not accurate," said Dr. Blaine Hoshizaki, Director of the Neurotrauma Lab that developed the test, which is open to any company in the space. "Hit Count® Certification, the first and only sensor certification in the marketplace, will give consumer and research scientists the confidence that the sensors are accurately measuring impacts, providing simple and actionable data."

 G-Force Tracker, which is implanted inside football, ice hockey, and lacrosse helmets, is the first company to be Hit Count® Certified, with more products expected to be tested and certified later this year.

 Pro Football Hall of Famer Mike Haynes, who joined the press conference and currently coaches his son's 4th grade youth football team, said, "I wish this technology was available when I played." Haynes noted a recent Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University study that found three youth football teams of 9-12 year olds had Hit Counts for the season that ranged from 61 to 145. "As a youth football coach I have tried to limit brain trauma as much as possible, but I have never been able to quantify it and see how successful we are. Am I more like the team with 61 Hits or 145? Hit Count® Certified devices will allow me to adjust how I coach to make my son's team safer."

 Three-time Super Bowl Champion Ted Johnson, a former linebacker for the New England Patriots who retired from post-concussion syndrome in 2005, said, "I track the number of steps I take each day to lower my risk of heart disease. I owe it to my son to count the number of Hits to his head in sports to lower his risk of concussions and subconcussive brain damage."

 The blue ribbon consensus committee that set the threshold included Drs. Robert Cantu and Ann McKee of Boston University, Kevin Guskiewicz of the University of North Carolina, David Hovda of UCLA, Gerry Gioia of Children's National Medical Center, Blain Hoshizaki of the University of Ottawa, William Meehan of Harvard Medical School, and Kelly Sarmiento of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

About the Sports Legacy Institute 
The Sports Legacy Institute (SLI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was founded in 2007 by Dr. Robert Cantu and Christopher Nowinski to "solve the concussion crisis" by advancing the study, treatment, and prevention of the effects of brain trauma in athletes and other at-risk groups. SLI achieves this mission through education and prevention programs, advocacy, policy development, and support of medical research at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine (BU CSTE). The BU CSTE was created in 2008 as a partnership between SLI, BU, and the Department of Veterans Affairs and conducts cutting-edge clinical and pathological research on the long-term effects of repetitive brain trauma, with a focus on the degenerative brain disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). For more information please visit SportsLegacy.org and HitCount.org.