Science of prevention

Can the next wave of concussion detection equipment come from a high school science project? It will if Hewitt-Trussville High School senior Reagan Shoop has her way. 

Shoop, a member of the HTHS Engineering, Design and Development (EDD) class, has spent most of the last year turning a regular HTHS Huskies football helmet into a concussion detection helmet. 

The design gained recognition this spring when she won the health and medicine sciences category at the Central Alabama Regional Science and Engineering Fair at UAB and received the Intel Award — an all-expense-paid trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, May 12-17, in Phoenix, Arizona.

Reaching the ISEF requires a “very special project and a lot of extra work on the part of the students,” according to HTHS engineering instructor Jason Dooley, who leads the academy along with Tom Moulton. 

Each summer, EDD students are tasked with brainstorming potential problems they can solve through their project.  

For Shoop, learning about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — a degenerative brain disease that results from repetitive brain trauma and is becoming more known through autopsies of former professional athletes — was a lightbulb moment. Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was recently diagnosed postmortem with stage three CTE, and it has been found in athletes like former linebacker Junior Seau and quarterback Ken Stabler.

Shoop, however, thought of her two brothers, who play football.

“The idea of them having something like that and not being able to do what they want was just devastating,” she said. 

She quickly turned to the idea of an improved football helmet. Riddell, a leading maker of football equipment, markets the InSite Training Tool, a five-zone sensor pad put inside helmets to monitor impacts to the head, but Shoop modified the idea with a single-sensor, LED lights and an alarm. 

Shoop’s sensor is linked to an accelerometer to measure the G-force when there is a change of acceleration of a player’s head. While several have focused on the impact of a big hit, Shoop says her design should work “if they fall or if they hit someone really hard and their head jolts forward.” 

Inclusion of a design to detect a fall is equally as important as the big hit. The Concussion Legacy Foundation released a study in 2015 saying 21.5% of concussions in high school sports are the result of head to playing surface contact, including 6% after a hit has occurred. 

Shoop’s design works with an Arduino circuit board to run the accelerometer and LED lights. A green light on the helmet signals the system is powered on. A yellow light goes off at 20 Gs when a potential sub-concussive force is detected. Since her research revealed concussions not only come from a single high-impact hit but also from several medium-impact hits, a blue light will signal when a player’s sub-concussive hits add up to 95 Gs. A red light and high-pitched alarm goes off above the ear when forces of 95 Gs or greater are detected. 

Both the blue and red lights power off the helmet and are set to signal team medical personnel that a player needs evaluation. A fifth white LED and thermometer were recently added to measure helmet temperature, lighting up at 104 degrees, to protect against heat-related illness. 

“It’s a baseline to get everyone paying attention,” Shoop said. 

Tyler McPherson, a first-year certified athletic trainer (ATC) with HTHS through PlaySafe Alabama, helped answer Shoop’s questions and secured the football helmet for her project. McPherson hopes Shoop’s design, when completed, can help alert ATCs quicker. Currently, Riddell’s system is designed to update every five minutes, creating a delay in alerts. 

“It would be cool if there’s a big difference between her design and not having that delayed gap in notification that there’s been a severe blow that can be detrimental to their health,” McPherson said. 

McPherson believes an LED system and the alarm may provide further accountability, but players will still need to be honest with coaches and medical staff. 

“Having a helmet like this can override the thought, ‘I can shake it off. I’m OK.’ It shows us how much of an impact they took and that we need to take the time to thoroughly complete an evaluation that they are OK and able to return to play before things get more serious,” McPherson said. “It could make a difference.”

The Centers for Disease Control estimates 2.5 million high school students reported a sports-related concussion in 2017. While Shoop chose to focus on the highest profile sport, she hopes to be able to use her technology in any sport with a helmet, including her love of horse riding. It was only two years ago that she sustained her second concussion when she fell off her horse and hit her head on a pole during competition. 

Dooley says that is one reason her project has thrived. 

“The best problems are those that students have a personal connection with,” Dooley said. “Reagan is an amazing young lady with a compassion to help others. She has worked very hard on her project, and I am proud to be her instructor. Reagan is destined to make a difference in the world.”

Shoop plans to enroll at UAB this fall with a major in biomedical engineering and is considering adding a minor in neuroengineering. She also hopes to be able to work within the UAB concussion lab. 

“I really would love to take it with me [to UAB] and maybe start measuring actual data on football players,” Shoop said of her prototype. “I’d love to test it and make the system inside of the helmet smaller or to work better so it doesn’t bring the integrity of the helmet into question. It is definitely something I want to keep working on for a while.”

Shoop says the most rewarding part of her opportunity to represent HTHS at the science fairs is to display women in engineering. It’s a big move for the girl who only signed up for pre-engineering in eighth grade because she needed another elective. 

“We really don’t see a lot of girls that go through the academy and go into EDD [at HTHS],” said Shoop, who is secretary of the academy. “This is huge for our program, because people are seeing these kids in engineering know how to do this. They’re learning because the program is so awesome, but it is also for girls to see and say, ‘She’s a girl and she can do it, so why can’t I?’