PALO ALTO (KCBS) – Athletes and coaches are turning to technology to help them with growing concern over head injuries, and Stanford’s football team is the first in the nation to use a special mouthpiece that measures the force of head movement. The device is called the X2 Impact mouthpiece.

“Inside the mouthpiece we’ve embedded sophisticated electronics that measure the linear and rotational acceleration experienced by the players, ” said Christoph Mack, co-founder and CEO of X2.

He said that information is both stored in the mouthpiece, and transmitted in real time to sideline equipment that shows what the athlete is experiencing in their head. This can be especially valuable in the case of an athlete who may not exhibit any concussion symptoms.

KCBS’ Susan Leigh Taylor Reports:

“The second thing that it does is flag unusually large impacts or unusual clusters of impacts to the sideline staff, and gives them hints that perhaps this is a good time to assess the player in more detail,” said Mack.

Coaching staff can compare this information to a player’s past head injury history. Statistics show that football players with a history of concussion are as much as twice as likely to sustain a concussion in the future.

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