iStockphoto
It’s kind of crazy how long the NFL tried to pretend that there is nothing particularly dangerous about incredibly big men colliding with each other at high speed just to end up lying motionless on the ground for a long period of time on a regular basis – especially considering it’s been years. turning a blind eye to research on the long-term repercussions of head trauma.
Of course, the league was not the only organization that was happy to prioritize highlights over the health of its players, as ESPN had no qualms about celebrating batting at the “Jacked Up!” Tournament segment that quietly disappeared from the network after talks about concussions and CTE became too loud to be ignored.
In 2015, a study of the brains of more than 90 former NFL players who donated the organ to researchers after his death found that 96% of them had evidence of CTE, and there were many horror stories about athletes who had to deal with the impact devastating impact they have been subjected to throughout their careers.
The football world has made great strides in dealing with the problem in recent years, as the leagues suppressed blows to the head and instituted concussion protocols. Companies have also continued to refine helmet designs to make the game safer, and a few years ago, a group of elementary school students even developed a way to detect concussions the moment they happen.
Now, there is a new piece of equipment on the market that is about to be a literal game changer when it comes to contact sports, as the FDA recently announced that it gave its seal of approval to the Q-Collar, a device that was designed by a group of doctors over seven years who appears to be able to dramatically reduce head trauma when used.
Although the research that led to its creation may have been quite complex, the Q-Collar itself is quite simple: it is a ring that you wear around your neck that “applies compressive force that increases the volume of the blood to help reduce the movement of the brain “- colloquially referred to as” splash “- to minimize the impact of hitting the skull.
The Q-Collar has been at the center of a series of clinical studies and, in the one that led it to receive FDA approval, 77% of the 145 high school football players who helped test it did not experience any significant changes in the the “white matter regions” of the brain compared to 73% of non-users who had “significant changes” detected in the tissue after undergoing an MRI.
Obviously, there is still a lot of work to be done in this realm, as, unlike Rob Gronkowski, there is currently no effective way to drastically reduce CTE symptoms after the fact. With that said, you can only hope that this is a big step in the right direction.