The number of concussions suffered by University of Cincinnati football players has dropped by more than 80 percent since an innovative peripheral-vision training program started five years ago, according to UC researchers.
The program, which enhances an athlete’s ability to discern an
opponent who’s on a collision course, was credited with reducing the number of concussions from a rate of 9.2 per 100 games played to 1.4.
The brains of Bearcat athletes are now trained to process information faster by using equipment designed to improve visual acuity and hand-eye coordination, said Joe Clark, a UC professor of neurology who was corresponding author of a concussion study reported Monday in the journal Optometry & Visual Performance.
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Evidence indicates that the training helped improve control of eye muscles. Players were able to better focus on a point, providing the brain with more information from peripheral fields of vision.
Large-scale clinical trials are needed to confirm the effects of the vision training noted in the study, which had a small sample size, Clark said.
He and some of his UC colleagues began vision training for Bearcat football players before the 2010 season. The number of concussions suffered by players during the four following seasons (2010-13) was compared with concussions logged in four earlier seasons, 2006-09.
“We believe that the vision training we performed is broadening the athlete’s field of awareness, or functional peripheral vision,” Clark said. “With that additional information, they can react faster to their changing environment and avoid injury-causing collisions.”
I reported in November 2013 that Clark and doctors at UC Health were developing techniques to teach football players how to absorb or avoid the kind of contact that causes concussions.
“Many coaches have told their players to ‘use’ their peripheral vision,” Clark said. “But little to no emphasis is placed on prevention or training to reduce the risk of traumatic brain injury, which includes concussions.”
Helmets can reduce the risk of skull fractures, but they can’t prevent concussions. It’s not the hit itself that causes a concussion but the force of the brain bouncing off the inside of the skull. In the most serious cases, the brain swells, affecting vital bodily functions such as the ability to breathe. Repeated concussions might increase the possibility of brain damage.
“So far, improved helmets and concussion-mitigation strategies have been ineffective,” Clark said. “We hypothesized that vision training would significantly reduce both practice and competition concussion incidence in football. What this vision training did was train our athletes to improve their peripheral vision.”
UC athletes are trained on a hand-eye coordination device called Dynavision D2, which is similar to the arcade game Whack-a-Mole. A computer gauges how fast and accurately athletes slap at one of 64 lights that flash randomly on a grid. The machines are made in West Chester and cost UC about $15,000 apiece (plus $2,000 for a mobile stand).
UC also uses a tachistoscope – which trains the brain to recognize images faster – pinhole glasses, strobe glasses and pitch-and-catch routines designed to be progressively more complicated.
Funding for the study was provided by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (part of the National Institutes of Health) and Geraldine “Ginger” Warner, a retired lawyer who is a member of the UC board of trustees.
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Here's why concussions plummeted among UC football players
