Smart headband for brain health management in school and grassroots sport

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Concussion, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a growing issue in contact sport, with significant increase in former players being diagnosed with early onset dementia. This is a growing concern for players, coaches, sport clubs, schools and parents. The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee produced a report in July 2021 highlighting these concerns.HeadX is developing a Smart Headband specifically designed to support players, teachers, coaches and parents in ensuring safe participation in grassroots contact sport. The smart headband is design a number of accelerometers and gyroscopes to accurately capture a players head movement 100 times a second. To date they have developed low volume, proof of concept prototypes that have been trialled at a local Gloucestershire Rugby club. The evidence from these trials provided excellent insight into the learning that can be gained from wearables and data analytics in developing our understanding of contact sports and brain health.This project provides an excellent opportunity to help teachers and coaches to "Recognise and Remove" any player that incurred brain trauma. It also help coach players to improve their technique and learn from objective data.Innovate UK grant funding will allow the team to further develop their prototype towards a Law 4 Innovation trial with World Rugby. The funding will significantly improve the design, size and comfort of the wearable device alongside developing the software to improve accessibility in a busy school rugby club environment. The software development will mean that a club can quickly download, analyse and learn from completed sessions.