NFLPA President JC Tretter: Concussion Protocols: Where We Stand Now

https://www.onfocus.news/nflpa-president-jc-tretter-concussion-protocols-where-we-stand-now/?utm_content=buffere12e8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

With Football at all levels and other contact sports “heating up” we wanted to share some information and links to a couple concussion related articles and papers to understand and to consider.

Great overview of the current NFL Concussion protocols from JC Tretter, NFL Players Association President. It is great to see the raising of the bar for the health and safety of the athletes that has taken place and continues to evolve.

Last year the 6th #concussion in sport summit took place in Amsterdam and they published a consensus paper of their findings earlier this year –https://lnkd.in/gi4RTjPD

TRAZER has been a technology that looks at the health and safety of everyone it works with by tracking the athletes through all stages of their physical and cognitive function from baselines to performance training to return to play. TRAZER technology combines immersive simulation, reaction-based challenges, and motion capture analytics to help every body move better. TRAZER aligns perfectly at the point where biology, technology, and data intersect to engage the brain + body and provide insights that are predictive, prescriptive, and preventative.

Barry French, co-founder added, it’s admirable what JC Tretter NFL Players Association President, Dr. Thom Mayer, MD, NFL Medical Director, Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Allen Sills, and the National Football League (NFL) are doing regarding concussions. The world knows that concussions are an issue and one that went unaddressed for much of sports history. Over the last several years, major reform has transpired and we understand far more about their short and long term health implications. The brain drives everything we do in life, athlete, or not. When the brain is injured, research proves it puts us at a much higher risk of lower extremity injury. It makes sense, that an 18-year old female soccer player who suffered a concussion goes to plant her foot and she contracts her quad prematurely due to the head injury and she ends up with a noncontact ACL injury. Should we be doing more to assess athletes for concussion and musculoskeletal injury in a safe environment analogous to the real-world environment they have to return to? In a reactive based environment with an elevated heart rate that also challenges the vestibular system?

That’s one of the incredible benefits of TRAZER. It places that athlete in immersive simulation and looks at their ability to process information appropriately, react, accelerate, decelerate, etc. It measures their heart rate to ensure there are no abnormalities due to autonomic nervous system issues due to a concussion. TRAZER allows you to assess the holistic human to ensure their function is “their” normal and that they’re truly ready to return-to-play safely.