FDA Approves Device That May Help Prevent Traumatic Brain Injuries by Clamping Blood Vessels in the Neck
The US Food and Drug Administration approved a device last week that may help prevent traumatic brain injuries in athletes by clamping down on blood vessels in the neck.
Odd, right? But it might have real potential. By slightly restricting blood flow through the internal jugular veins, the device, called the Q-Collar, increases blood volume in the skull, thereby limiting movement of the brain inside of the skull, which experts believe is what generally causes traumatic brain injuries.
As new research on brain injuries continues to emerge, experts have increasingly focused on ways to minimize the damage from repeated subconcussive impacts, which have been indicted for likely causing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative brain disease that has notoriously affected football players and that results from cumulative damage over time.
To assess the safety and effectiveness of the Q-Collar, the FDA ran a series of studies, including a prospective, longitudinal on 284 high school American football players that used pre- and post-season MRI scans and accelerometer data to track structural changes in the subjects’ brains that occurred throughout a season of play. The changes found affected deep white matter regions of the brain related to electrical signal transmission and were associated with repeated head impacts.
Significant changes were found in the brains of 73% of the no-collar group compared with 23% of the Q-Collar group.
Another study looked at female soccer players and had similar findings: The no-collar group, in general, had significant white matter changes, while the Q-Collar group did not. The soccer study, however, included another MRI three months post-season, which found that the white mater changes had either resolved or partially resolved, leaving the question of whether the Q-Collar helps prevent the cumulative damage that leads to CTE.
It’s important to note that the Q-Collar is in no way an adequate replacement for a helmet and other appropriate protective gear, but it is a cool piece of gear that seems promising and might (hopefully) have benefits in a real and very scary corner of the impact and action sports worlds.
The Q-Collar is already for sale in Canada and is pending approval in Europe and the UK. Information about availability in the US will be available soon at https://q30innovations.com/.
More information about the Q-Collar and its FDA approval is available in the FDA press release.
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After reading this thread , i'm guessing the average would be around Twelve or maybe older but with pre-existing brain damage .
is that grounds for a ban @brianpark or is it ok since brain damaged ppl aren't a recognized protected class?
The reply was clearly par-for-the-course (with the course being the par 69 PB comment section).
Scholarship potential is a little better - about 32,000 spots in existence (www.ncsasports.org/football/scholarships) across 900 football programs in the country. However, that's total, so any one year is on average 1/4 of that - 8,000 - and even within DI those aren't all fully funded/utilized, so call it about 6,000. There are about 4M new full time college freshman. There are ~1M highschool football players, so figure about 250k football-playing seniors. So 244k highschool seniors are damaging their brains so that 6k of their friends (2.5% of them) can get a college education representing 0.15% of all college opportunities.
Here's where it gets crazy. There are 1.7 million college scholarship opportunities in the US, of which football represents 0.35% based on the numbers above. Put another way, you have about 300X more scholarship opportunities outside of football than within it.
Young people are going to do dangerous things, and are going to get hurt and thats life. That is separate from the virtual slave trade that is football. It is one of the most predatory sports at every level. There is a big difference between some kids (or adults) playing a sport, and an organization profiting off children playing a combat sport. The fact that football has embedded itself so deeply into "education" is not only disgusting, also a little counter-intuitive.
Its looking like some people took a few too many hits to the head at a young age to understand this though.
Same as you played rugby a lot when younger moved to the USA recently took up ice hockey and have more injuries while fully geared up in a shorter time compared to 10 years of rugby.
Something's GOTTA give with the kind of high-speed momentum and shock power that results.
He's going to be ecstatic about your life choices
WOOPWOOP.
I'm just not knowledgeable enough to know what the risks here are, but I feel like more than with ball sports, any risk that your reaction times are slowed down would be extremely dangerous for mountain biking and not worth the potential benefits. It could be that there is no risk, but I wish the article mentioned that.
Just playing the devil's advocate here. TBIs and CTE are a huge issue and anything that can help mitigate risk for athletes is a blessing. I already ride with a neck brace and would consider adding a product like this to my ppe arsenal.
284 high school American football players that used pre- and post-season MRI scans and accelerometer data to track structural changes in the subjects’ brains that occurred throughout a season of play. The changes found affected deep white matter regions of the brain related to electrical signal transmission and were associated with repeated head impacts.
Significant changes were found in the brains of 73% of the no-collar group compared with 23% of the Q-Collar group....
They did 284 MRI's for clinical trials. Do you think that is even 0.00001% of the effort in clinical trials done for helmets?
The cost of this is absurd and ridiculous.
Clinical trials aren't really required for a helmet to assume it will help you avoid a head injury. A blood constricting neckband probably needs those trials to convince the general user.
How many times have you some off a gnarly descent and felt like you brain has been rattling round inside your head?
It's all these repeated - even small - impacts that can also contribute.
The data they now can't determine whether the device prevents concussions, but it seems plausible it could. All head trauma is a continuum anyway--there's no hard line between concussion/not concussion.
It might not be an issue for the casual rider that maybe gets 1 in their lifetime but with athletes that compete and/or kids that are on the crazy side of the norm it's 100% an issue.
Dave Mirra brought this to people attention. People weren't really thinking about cyclists as CTE risks but if you think about it... how many times do you think that dudes head slapped off the dirt, concrete and wood ramps with and without helmets during his career? I remember when the emails and calls first started coming in when he took his life. I worked at Bell at the time which was under the same umbrellas as Riddell which was in the middle of massive lawsuits related to CTE. So when it happened everyone and their mother was asking about it.
Now years later there's much more of a focus on preventing concussions in cycling. Helmets really used to be to keep you alive during heavy trauma. But now they're steadily progressing towards adding to that with concussion prevention technology. MIPS really got that going and MIPS was heavily funded by Bell/Riddell. As was their Moto based FLEX technology. Now there's spherical mips and every other brands version of tech directly related to decreasing contact concussions and rotational concussions. They wouldn't do that if concussion and CTE were not an issue with cyclist.
Look at these older dudes, talk to them. I guarantee you nearly all of them will tell you they wish the tech was there sooner. Dave's not the only one.
Can you not just say "73% of the no-collar group exhibited changes, compared to only 23% for the Q-Collar group"? What's with the weird comparison of opposing metrics here?
fap fap fap fap etc
I would certainly give it a try for Enduro and just put it on before stages.
It shows a lot that they're focusing on high school athletes here. Damage is well on it's way before they reach professional level sports.
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"caution, fire is hot"