Recently, I attended a presentation in St. Louis by the sports apparel company, Rawlings, about football helmets and helmet safety in general.
As part of that presentation, Dr. Jason Mihalik of the Matthew A. Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center at the University of North Carolina talked about the Concussion Recognition and Response App that he co-created for android and Apple-device users to help parents recognize the signs and symptoms of a possible concussion.
Screenshot from Concussion Recognition and Response App
It struck me that this isn’t just an app that parents whose children are involved in organized sports should have. It’s likely something that parents of any active kid would want to have, especially given it’s only priced at $3.99.
Mihalik explained during the presentation that the App is not designed to turn anyone into a doctor or first responder. It does not diagnose concussions. What it does it take the App user through a series of questions related to the signs and symptoms of a concussion and supplies recommendations on what steps to take once the evaluation is done. It might recommend everything from a trip to the doctor’s office to calling emergency personnel.
Mihalik mostly talked about the App as it related to team sports, giving coaches and others on-scene a chance to evaluate a player quickly and make sure that they don’t return to activity too soon. But as a parent who has had kids fall off bikes, fall down steps, and various other mishaps that resulted in falls where they hit their heads, this seemed like it would be useful for everyday activity as well as organized sports.
For more on the App and an overall look about helmet safety in general, watch the video that Rawlings put together from the presentation, check out the video of this post about the overall Rawlings presentation at GeekMom.
