If Warriors Star Steph Curry Gets A Head Injury, Virtual Reality May Be In Play
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Benny Evangelista
Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle
The Golden State Warriors this season are using a virtual reality headset adapted to help quickly diagnose whether players have concussion symptoms.
The Warriors are the first professional sports team to endorse the eye-tracking technology from SyncThink of Palo Alto, although the team just bought the system and hasn’t used it so far this season.
“And of course, I hope we never do,” assistant general manager Kirk Lacob said in an email. However, he said the team decided to try the system, named Eye-Sync, because concussions and acute brain injuries are “multifaceted and complex” conditions.
“If there is a chance that the Eye-Sync system can help us more objectively and efficiently identify and better manage even one of those components of a potential brain injury, it’s worth exploring,” he said.
SyncThink was founded in 2009 by Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, director of the Stanford Concussion and Brain Performance Center and president of the Brain Trauma Foundation.
The company markets to sports teams and athletes, but the technology was developed with Defense Department funding, and its biggest customer so far is the U.S. Army, said Scott Anderson, who left his job as Stanford’s head athletic trainer in June to become SyncThink’s chief customer officer.
The athletic programs at Stanford, the University of Texas and Iowa State use the system, originally built around a more expensive Oculus Rift headset. New Orleans Saints tight end Coby Fleener, a former Stanford player, joined SyncThink’s advisory board this month.
Now, the company has adopted a cheaper Samsung Gear VR headset, which can cost about $100. A SyncThink spokeswoman declined to say how much the company charges for its technology, saying it ranges widely depending on the customer’s needs.
Inside, the smartphone-run headset displays a point of light rotating in a circle. It then charts how accurately the wearer’s eyes follow the light and sends that data wirelessly to a tablet, which stores the information online.
Athletic trainers first test how the athlete tracks a point of light when fully healthy. If there’s a head injury during a game, the athlete takes the 30- to 40-second test again and the results are compared. Those with an impairment will track the light differently because they aren’t able to synchronize their eyes to the light’s movement.
If the athlete is tracking the same way, but still shows concussion-like symptoms, doctors can start looking for other causes, such as a neck or spine injury, said Dr. Lenore Herget, senior physical therapist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Sports Medicine Center.
Herget said the system gives her data to show patients how far they may be off and how much progress they are making toward recovery. That’s especially important for athletes, who live in a world of black-and-white statistics.
“It’s objective, they can see it, they can visualize it,” Herget said.
Herget said she has obtained baseline data for the players for the Boston Bruins and New England Patriots — where she’s a member of the training staff — and used it for concussion recovery treatment five to 10 times per year. Still, the Bruins and Patriots have not bought units.
Anderson said the technology can also indicate other concentration problems due to issues like fatigue or lack of sleep.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved Eye-Sync for analyzing eye movements to identify tracking impairments. However, in July, the FDA warned SyncThink to stop marketing it as a concussion detection device.
SyncThink CEO Ernest Santin said the company has now removed the material and videos flagged by the FDA from its website.
Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: bevangelista@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChronicleBenny
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