UBC study using mouthguards to track impact of concussions on hockey players

A new study being conducted by the University of British Columbia will be using mouthguards to study hockey’s effect on the brain.

While there have been many studies about the link between football and concussions, there have not been as many studying the correlation between hockey and concussions.

UBC began recruiting players from the Thunderbirds hockey team, both women and men, last year to use the high-tech mouthguard that has motion sensors as a part of the five-year study.

Sensors inside the mouth guard, developed by UBC professor Dr. Lyndia Wu, tracks head impacts after every hit and can capture the speed and direction of the impact and the strength of the blow.

Dr. Adam Clansey, a research associate in mechanical engineering in the faculty of applied science at UBC, says this study was preceded by another one that looked at the MRIs and brain scans of hockey players before and after a season. Having the mouthguard in place offers another perspective.

“What happens is a player gets hit on the ice and it triggers a record and records that impact that the head experiences. The great thing about these mouthguards is they’ve got a good coupling with the scope and they’re advancing on from helmet sensors,” explained Clansey. “The problem with helmet sensors is that they move independent of what the skull is doing. So, with these mouthguards have been really accurate measure of head exposure during play.”

They are also researching the biomechanics of what happens after that concussion. “We’re looking at the brain structural changes following those sub-concussive and concussive impacts and we’re also looking at behavioral aspects. So we’re looking at how it affects player’s memory, their moods, balance and vision.”

Another part of the research is focused on the potential differences between female and male hockey players when it comes to head injuries.

“The majority of the research has been performed on male populations. So, we wanted to try and understand what is going on [with] female hockey players because there’s growing evidence out there that female’s in sports, contact sports, are at more of a higher risk of developing concussions or sustained concussions.”

This study is still in the early stages, but the team tells CityNews they are hoping the research may lead to better preventative measures in the sport of hockey, such as helmets and post-concussion treatment.

“We’re currently had a few concussions, play concussions already and we’re just trying to look at the data now and trying to see whether we can pick up what the characteristics of the impacts and how it affects brain structure but it’s very early days and hopefully, it may be in a few years, the findings will come on to have a better understanding of what’s going on,” added Clansey.

“The players want to help. A lot of them have sustained a concussion and they want to try and help the future generation of players.”