Is Knowing Better For Everyone, Part 2: The EyeBox

There's a report on the Newsweek site today headlined, "Exclusive: Why The Next Super Bowl Could Be Much Safer." It discusses a new technology patented by a company called Oculogica that uses a sophisticated algorithm to track abnormalities in eye movements that could indicate concussions or trauma resulting from severe head contact.

As writer Kevin Maney states in his story, "There's some excitement building around Oculogica because of a belief that its capability, called EyeBoxCNS, can be built into small, inexpensive devices that every team could have in the locker room. Heck, there's a chance this could end up as a smart phone app, allowing a suburban soccer coach to conduct an accurate sideline concussion scan anytime a couple of players knock heads."

Without bursting anyone's bubble, let me point out again what I noted in my last post, namely that knowing when an athlete suffers a concussion makes athletes only marginally safer, if it makes them safer at all. 

Outside of the Super Bowl, most coaches are already erring on the side of caution, avoiding the side of lawsuits, and holding out any player who shows the slightest sign of a concussion. Certainly there is value in having an accurate diagnosis tool that can make play/no-play decisions more objectively and largely remove coaches from this process. They'll feel better about it, and so will most athletes, parents, and insurance companies. Also, the EyeBox is valuable even if it only keeps one concussed player from re-entering a contest and suffering a second impact. But there is danger in seeing this technology as an advancement in athlete safety.

Think of it this way: If you're climbing a rock wall with a frayed harness and the harness gives way, are you safer because you knew that the harness gave way because it was frayed? There might be something you could do with this knowledge -- grab for the rope, perhaps, because the rope wasn't what failed -- but the only thing that would have made you truly safer would have been a harness that wasn't frayed.

The things that will make athletes safer are changes in rules, changes in culture, changes in coaching, and improvements in equipment. Everything else is after the fact.

One more note on the EyeBox: Like the Checklight, it offers the opportunity to gather data on the number and severity of athletically induced head injuries. This is incredibly valuable data. It's also a huge powderkeg that could blow up in the faces of many large, well-established institutions that have largely been excused from large-scale remediation because of a lack of macro-level data. Widespread adoption of these tools will deliver data and take away that defense.

It's no surprise then that Rich Ellenbogen, a neurosurgeon and co-chairman of the NFL's concussion committee, said that the EyeBox is, in Maney's words, "still more science project than proven technology." Knowing carries with it an obligation to do something with the knowledge. The longer a body can plead ignorance, the more time it buys.

The EyeBox and Checklight are significant steps forward. Now let's see who walks in their footsteps.