Do You Know Someone Who Plays Football

 

According to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Medicine Concussion Program, between 1.7 million and 3 million sports and recreation-related concussions happen each year. Around 300,000 of them are football-related, and nearly half of the concussions go unreported or undetected. Two in ten high school athletes who play contact sports, including soccer and lacrosse, will suffer a concussion this year.

Dubbed the Q-Collar after eight years of clinical trials and peer-reviewed medical trials in May, Q30 Innovations, a research development company formed around the medical device's innovative head-safety solutions, submitted a request for de novo classification to the Food and Drug Administration, seeking authorization to market the Q-Collar in the United States.

The collar is C-shaped, simple, elegant, and shares the same injection-molded plastic that the popular Fitbit does. Tested over 5,000 times, it consistently applies approximately 1.5 pounds of pressure to the surface of the neck and doesn't move or slide on the neck.

While still unavailable in the U.S., it has been used by Canadian Football League players, and Q30 Innovations is also working with the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity to study whether U.S. service members at risk of traumatic brain injury should use the collar.