A concussion management app, Head Check Health, has been developed by a UBC Master of Kinesiology graduate and PhD candidate, Harrison Brown.
Along with cofounders Kerry Costello — chief operating officer and recent MBA graduate from UBC — and Alexey Manov — manufacturing and operations manager and another recent UBC graduate — Brown hopes to enhance sports safety by making concussion data more readily available and easier for medical professionals to analyze.
The team also aims to increase concussion data accuracy by eliminating the human error currently involved in testing players’ balance. According to the team, concussion testing and management technology is very specialized.
There are three areas that need to be tested for a Gold Standard concussion test, a test which meets the requirements set and upheld by major sports organizations, from the IOC to the NHL.
Memory is tested by players’ recollection of a random set of words, cognition tests, concentration and awareness of players’ surroundings, while balance is tested via performance in balance exercises.
In contrast, Head Check Health is an all-in-one.
The app allows coaches, doctors and athletic trainers to gather data from all three tests in one place and analyze it on the spot — something that was previously impossible because of the unavailability of data.
The team noted that teams do not have dedicated trainers, doctors or even coaches for extended periods of time, especially at the amateur level which represents the vast majority of players.
Currently, balance is tested by medical professionals observing players perform balance exercises. There is a lot of room for human error in these tests, something Head Check hopes to remedy.
“It becomes basically a human error compounded onto another human error,” said Manov.
To address this, Head Check Health uses a proprietary headband to measure players’ sense of balance using high-sensitivity triple-axis accelerometers, which quantify movement of the players’ heads in 3D space during balance exercises. The headbands pair with the app to deliver accurate, quantitative data.
The team is currently in the beta trials of the app with 31 different schools’ varsity teams. They are prototyping a second version of the headband with better sensors and a more comfortable strap which will begin testing it in the coming weeks. With little competition producing both a headband and app of similar comprehensiveness, Head Check Health aims to eventually expand to service all sports players’ concussion management needs.
“Long term, what we want to do is have widespread adoption of [Head Check Health] across all sports, all age groups, all countries,” said Brown.