We all know that each Sport comes with its own Ugly sides. Players can get nasty Injuries on the field of play that keeps them away from action for Months. These Injuries can range from strains to bone fractures.
With most of these Injuries the player recovers after a time period and can resume Sporting activities and in some rare cases the Injury can lead to retirement and the player would have to pursue a Career in another Field.
This post however is not about Strains or Fractures. It is about a kind of Injury whose effects lasts longer than a few Months or weeks.
The Human Brain is very fragile and sits in a protective fluid which is contained in the Skull. In Football most of the tackles is done with the head and shoulders and over time, the build up affects the player and cause brain injury.
Repetitive concussions can spell major issues for athletes in their older years. Ian Roberts that played for the Australian Rugby league gave an Interview earlier this year on BBC on how the Rugby League gave him Brain damage.
This Long term effects of this includes physical, cognitive, and emotional problems. Players suffering from this will experience constant Headaches, dizziness , irritability and inability to concentrate on everyday tasks
There have been a lot of concerns from a lot of quarters since this advanced form of concussion was discovered. Some parents started preventing their Children who had interests in Football from playing the game.
Experts even demanded that tackling should be banned in schools due the level of head and neck injuries been suffered by students due to the game.
Introducing VICIS
Vicis is a Helmet Manufacturing company that came up with a Multiple award winning Helmet that has reduced the Impact felt by Football tackles greatly.
The founders combined their knowledge of Engineering and Medicine to come up with a helmet that has an alternate design.
With the traditional helmets, the hard part of the Helmet is on the outside while the soft part is inside cushioning the head. But Vicis is a total opposite, the hard part of the helmet is inside while the outer part is soft.
Co-founder and Medical doctor Sam Browd while explaning the vision behind Vicis made the following statement In an Interview which was posted on the Company Website.
The initial concept happened while I was pediatric neurosurgery conference in Hawaii. One group was discussing a new type of foam liner and it just struck me that everyone was focusing their efforts on small, incremental changes in football helmet technology. During the lecture I jotted down a sketch of a new helmet that I thought would reduce the impact forces at the time of collision. I came back to Seattle and sketched the ideas more formally and reached out to VICIS co-founder Per Reinhall to talk about the idea and problems that I wanted to solve.
The inspiration is and has always been about kids and making sports safer for them. I have worked clinically with youth and professional athletes and the problem of head related injury remains a concern for the athlete and their family. I have always felt we could do better by bringing improved safety to sports and VICIS is the culmination of that desire.
He also said :
I have had the heart wrenching experience of having to tell youth athletes and their families that they must retire from a sport they love due to repeated concussions. Even though I deal with life and death decisions and conversations daily as a pediatric neurosurgeon, these discussions around sports can be some of the most difficult and life altering. It seemed obvious to me that if we could improve safety equipment maybe less of these types of conversations would have to happen
Vicis mission as a company is summed up in three powerful words.
Protect The Athlete
And this mission has driven them to build Innovative helmets that has turned out to be Industry standards. Hundreds of Schools and Football players around North America has adopted the VICIS helmet.
The company has recieved a total of 11 awards for their Life Saving work. The Helmet was listed as one of the 25 TIME best Inventions of 2017.
The Helmet has revived the hope people have In Football as the companies has received orders from all over America. I believe that if anyone should play Football, this is the Helmet for them.
Thanks for Reading
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