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It’s a bit wild the time the NFL tried to pretend there’s nothing dangerous when incredibly big men collide with each other at high speed only to end up lying on the ground for an extended period of time on a regular basis, especially when you consider who spent years turning a blind eye to research into the long-term repercussions of cranial trauma.
Of course, the league wasn’t the only organization that was happy to prioritize highlights over the health of its players, as ESPN had no hesitation in celebrating hits on “Jacked Up!” segment that quietly disappeared from the network after conversations about concussions and CTE became too loud to ignore.
In 2015, a study on the brains of more than 90 former NFL players who donated the organ to researchers after his death found that 96% of them showed evidence of CTE and there have been many stories of terror on athletes who have had to deal with the devastating impact of the brutal impacts they were subjected to throughout their careers.
The world of football has made progress in addressing the issue in recent years, as leagues have cracked down on heads and instituted concussion protocols. Companies have also continued to perfect helmet designs to make the game safer, and a few years ago, a group of high school students even developed a way to detect concussions at the time they happened.
Now, there’s a new computer on the market that can literally change games when it comes to contact sports, as the FDA recently announced that it has given its seal of approval to the Q-Collar, a device designed for a group of doctors over seven years who seem to be able to drastically reduce head trauma when worn.
While the research that led to its creation may have been quite complex, the Q necklace is very simple: it’s a ring you wear around your neck that “applies a compressive force that increases blood volume to help reduce blood pressure. brain movement, ”colloquially known as“ sliding ”: to minimize the impact it impacts on the skull.
The Q-Collar has been at the center of some clinical studies and, in what led to the FDA award, 77% of the 145 high school football players who helped test it did not experience it. no significant change in the “white matter regions” of the brain compared with 73% of non-carriers who detected “significant changes” in tissue after undergoing MRI.
Obviously, there is still a lot of work to be done in this area, as unlike Rob Gronkowski, it would lead you to believe that there is currently no effective way to drastically reduce CTE symptoms after the fact. That said, one can only expect this to be a big step in the right direction.