Effectiveness and usability of the HALO compression shirt

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Approximately 100,000 concussions are diagnosed each year in Canadian hospitals,and approximately two-thirds**are sports related. Prevention of concussions is a major focus for Canadians, and has been taken up by a variety**of sports equipment manufacturers. A Canadian design and technology company, Aexos Inc. (Waterloo, Ontario**Canada), has developed a compression shirt designed to reduce whiplash of the head and neck during impacts in**contact sports. The effectiveness of this technology has been assessed through computer modelling, and**laboratory testing. However, its effectiveness has not been assessed in sports environments with athletes.**Furthermore, there has been little research evaluating the usability of this equipment. This company is interested**in researching the effectiveness of their technology in attenuating the magnitude of head accelerations during**contact sports, and evaluating its usability. We have been performing research evaluating the magnitude of head**impacts in varsity football, and their neurological consequences, for the past 5 years. We propose to evaluate the**effectiveness of the HALO technology by comparing the magnitude of the head impacts from players wearing the**HALO technology compared to historical data of matched impacts when the players were not wearing HALO**technology. In specific, impacts from players wearing the HALO technology will be matched based on player**position and style of play (offense, defense, running, passing, kick return etc) to our library of more than 100,000**impacts collected over the past 5 years. In addition, we will survey the players to garner information about the**usability of the technology.