Inspired by Wearable Design Challenge “Sudden Impact” by element14, this is the second in a series of posts, exclusively for Italian Fortronic / A&v Electronics, that explore the challenges in creating wearable medical devices.
The challenge “Sudden Impact” is in full swing and our participants have pledged to study a myriad of different sports through a variety of devices with innovative design. Head injuries and internal injuries are still two of the topics dealt with by researchers and medical personnel, but how can designers to measure the true “impact” of these lesions? How can we define the concept of impact and determine the limits? These are just some of the questions that our participants are called to account before you can begin to turn their design ideas into reality.
I finalists of the contest come from the four corners of the planet and for that one of the tasks that have been assigned to them is to ensure that their projects meet the standards of their respective countries in the definition and the extent of the injuries. The competitors have realized immediately that before giving life to their ideas, it is necessary that their projects comply with all applicable medical and scientific, to ensure the accuracy and the invariability of all diagnoses shows. The appearance of'Invariance is particularly important for coaches and athletes, which will rely heavily on data from these devices handmade.
In short, our design engineers have to ensure that their solutions do not provide users with incorrect information on injuries, because such information could have serious consequences, especially if an existing lesion is not detected properly.
Criterion of head injury: football players and skiers
The project of the German Hendrik Lipka caters to skiers and football players and involves two key functions: monitor the heartbeat of an athlete during loosening and act as impact detector installed on the helmet during meetings. In his research, Hendrik has focused on biological and medical sciences, through which he discovered “Criterion of head injury“, better known as HIC.
L’THIS serve a rilevare l’effetto e la durata di accelerazione e decelerazione nel momento dell’impatto con la testa ed è diventato un metodo particolarmente apprezzato per testare la tenuta e la sicurezza di attrezzature sportive e dispositivi di sicurezza. Attraverso una curva d’accelerazione, HIC the formula calculates the average acceleration in a specific period of time, generally 15 my, that sometimes can become 3 or even 36. Is then calculated a maximum value using the total period of time in order to determine the impact of the force of acceleration on the head. Interestingly, several variables may be substituted in the formula to make it applicable also to other parts of the body. One of the examples of use of the formula HIC is to detect the drastic drop in acceleration when a football player collided with a teammate on the field.
However, despite the HIC formula seems a perfect solution for design, Hendrik admits he encountered some problems with this theory. The accelerometers of the range ADXL by Analog Devices in fact only register 800 the 1600 measurements per second, and why Hendrik struggles to reach his preferences of accuracy. The ideal would be to record these measurements every millisecond so as to better calculate the total of the sums in a specific period of time, through simple multiplication and division.
As a result, the main challenge for Hendrik is to program the helmet in order to calculate the acceleration fairly quickly and efficiently, without compromise on battery life.
Multiple concussions and contact sports
The Canadian What Lewis, another of the finalists “Sudden Impact” element14, proposed the idea of a casco multi-sport able to monitor heatstroke, heart attacks, and concussions. Many have been proposed within the race helmets, but that of Kas is distinguished from others by its ability to measure repeated injuries to the head, or multiple concussions.
Although it is commonly believed that the injuries from single impact have a more lasting effect on the brain, there is general agreement on the fact that multiple concussions are much more dangerous because it does not leave enough time to recover from the brain of an impact before undergoing the next. That's why the helmet designed by Kas is perfect for contact sports such as football, in cui le lesioni sono diffuse e possono avere conseguenze significative a lungo termine per il giocatore. Il progetto di Kas contiene un sensore che rileva temperature anomale nel corpo, as well as two separate accelerometers to monitor the severity of the individual concussions with a high degree of security. The device is also equipped with full functions of monitoring and reference that exploit CC3100 and MSP430F5529 to collect and upload information in real time to a system in the cloud as Plot.ly.
However, just like Hendrik, Kas also faces a number of problems because it is not yet clear how they should be measured the impact of multiple concussions. I professionisti del settore medico si rendono conto che la ricerca sta ancora lavorando per capire in che modo diagnosticare e monitorare questo tipo di traumi. Nel trattare le commozioni cerebrali tradizionali siamo consapevoli dei numerosi sintomi, such as memory loss or headaches and we are equipped with tools that can help with the diagnosis, such as MRI and X-rays. But today is not yet possible to determine a clear set of features related to multiple concussions, and for that Kas has the onerous task of deciding whether it is sufficient to monitor only the lesion.
Need flexible design
Designing technologies that meet the criteria in the context of health and medical impacts and injuries is a topic for years now at the center of discussions between industry professionals. The challenges that face Hendrik and Kas are real examples of how these discussions must take place if we allow engineers to solve real life problems with new and innovative solutions.
And anyway, as long as it will not come to a medical consensus universal on a condition, projects of the engineers will have to be flexible and malleable and able to prevent any changes not yet confirmed in the medical standards. This is just one of the difficult obstacles that the finalists of our competition “Sudden Impact” and must overcome in the next chapter of the blog will explore exactly the effect that this has compromised on their devices.
Who is the author
Christian DeFeo is the e-supplier and innovation manager at Farnell element14. He recently edited the contest Beyond the Phone in which members of element14 have developed wireless medical devices. He is currently responsible for the design competition Sudden Impact.