BOSTON — Three Harvard graduate students have developed a device designed to help youth sports coaches screen athletes for possible concussions in less than two minutes.
The students created Rumble Rims, an infrared eye-tracking headset intended to give coaches an objective tool when deciding whether a young athlete should return to play or be evaluated by a medical professional. The invention recently won an international award.
“We see 2 to 3 million sports-related concussions in the US per year. And the current tools that are out there are not accessible for helping detect those concussions. If an athlete plays for 15 minutes through a concussion, it actually can increase prolonged symptoms by 12 times,” said Cleo Pontone, a second year master’s in design engineering student at Harvard.
While professional athletes typically have immediate access to medical professionals, the students wanted to find an easier and more affordable way for youth sports coaches to make decisions on the sidelines quickly and objectively.
“A lot of people’s college and futures depend on their ability to perform,” said Pontone. ”So this allows a coach and an athlete to make an objective decision that, hey, maybe you’re at risk. We should take you out so that we can make sure that you get in front of a medical professional.”
The 3D-printed Rumble Rims headset is equipped with infrared cameras and costs about $300 to make. The system provides step-by-step instructions for both the athlete and coach.
While wearing the headset, the athlete completes a roughly two-minute ocular game.
“They’re basically tracking a dot across the screen, and the whole time the camera is collecting data on how quick they are, how steady they are,” the grad students explained. ”All these variables that change when somebody’s experienced a concussion or any kind of neurological damage.”
As the athlete completes the test, the coach can monitor the results on a separate screen. The students stress that the prototype is not designed to diagnose a concussion. Instead, it is intended to help coaches determine whether an athlete should be removed from play and evaluated by a medical professional.
“It in no way is a diagnosis at this point, like we are working with the accuracy of this, but it is meant to give some kind of sense to the coach whether they should really let this player go back on the field or send them to a doctor for like further treatment and diagnosis,” said Radhika Saran, a second-year master’s in design engineering student at Harvard.
The students spoke with several coaches, players and trainers while developing the technology. One challenge they identified was that athletes may not always be forthcoming about concussion symptoms.
“A lot of people are not really honest about their symptoms,” said Saran. ”And we really wanted to find something that maybe exists in the labs that we could probably bring to the sidelines that could help very clear, that could give very clear signs of what it is and what it’s not.”
The students believe an objective screening tool could also take some of the pressure off coaches who have to make difficult decisions during a game.
“They would love something that takes that pressure off of them and really allows them to make a decision that feels right in the moment and can’t be argued with,” said Sophia DeVito, a second-year master’s in design engineering student at Harvard.
Ultimately, the team hopes the technology could become widely available to youth athletes.
“I think if this was on every sideline and in every high school,” said DeVito. ”We would be able to keep those kids safer throughout their whole careers whether they go on to play sports in college and beyond.”
Right now, Rumble Rims remains a prototype. The students are looking toward clinical trials and pilot programs with schools, with the long-term goal of making the technology available on sidelines across the United States and around the world.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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