Neurosurgeons and engineers at the Cleveland Clinic hospital group have developed a mouth guard that's basically a small computer. Wear it next time you play football, ice hockey or any other sports with the potential for head injuries.
The mouth guard measures the force, location and direction of the impact of each head injury. It sends data to a smartphone wirelessly and alerts coaches and medical personnel when a threshold has been exceeded. A red light on the mouth guard also comes on.
Adam Bartsch, who was one of the designers of the technology, says that "in near real time, what we're doing is computing the risk of concussion for any single head event."
The phone needs to be within about 75 feet of the player, though. That means having it with a trainer on the sidelines, not in the locker room.
The mouth guard costs $199 and comes from a Cleveland Clinic spinoff called Prevent Biometrics.
