GForceTracker named first Hit Count® Certified head impact sensor by the Sports Legacy Institute

TORONTO, Feb. 6, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- GForceTracker (GFT) is pleased to announce they are the first sensor company to be Hit Count® Certified by the Boston-based Sports Legacy Institute (SLI), a non-profit organization founded in 2007 by Dr. Robert Cantu and Christopher Nowinski to "solve the concussion crisis" by advancing the study, treatment, and prevention of the effects of brain trauma in athletes and other at-risk groups.

The Hit Count® initiative was launched in 2012 and seeks to measure and count sports-related head impacts that exceed a certain threshold set by a committee of leading scientists with the goal of minimizing brain injury. "Research using sensor devices has revealed that each year in the United States, there are over 1.5 billion impacts to the heads of youth and high school football players," said Chris Nowinski, Founding Executive Director of SLI. "Most hits are unnecessary and occur in practice. By utilizing Hit Count® Certified products, like the GFT, as a teaching tool for coaches and a behavior modification tool for athletes, we can eliminate over 500 million head impacts next season."

GFT Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Gerry Iuliano stated, "To be certified by SLI and its flagship Hit Count® initiative clearly demonstrates that our extensive research and product development over the past 3 years in this game changing technology is poised to make a difference, monitoring these sub-concussive impacts...one hit at a time." In order to be certified, GFT underwent rigorous testing at the University of Ottawa's Neurotrauma Impact Laboratory and for the past 12 months has been deployed in multiple research studies in addition to games across North America involving football, hockey, alpine, soccer as well as other non-helmeted sports.

According to Dr. Blaine Hoshizaki, Director of the Neurotrauma Lab that developed the test, "Head sensor devices involve complex technology, and many sensors on the market today are not accurate. Hit Count® Certification, the first and only sensor certification in the marketplace, will give consumer and research scientists the confidence that the sensors are accurately measuring impacts, providing simple and actionable data."

To learn more about GForceTracker visit gforcetracker.com.

About GForceTracker

GForceTracker is an advanced linear g-force and rotational impact sensor monitoring system that accumulates a lifetime of head impacts. The detection device monitors, measures and provides vital statistics such as number of impacts, severity of impacts, local alarming when the impact exceeds an acceptable threshold and accumulates this data to provide key metrics that determine whether its user has suffered a possible head injury. The GFT is currently the only Hit Count® Certified head impact sensor on the market and can be used by individual players or entire teams in both helmeted and non-helmeted sports. For more information please visit gforcetracker.com

About the Sports Legacy Institute

The Sports Legacy Institute (SLI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was founded in 2007 by Dr. Robert Cantu and Christopher Nowinski to "solve the concussion crisis" by advancing the study, treatment, and prevention of the effects of brain trauma in athletes and other at-risk groups. SLI achieves this mission through education and prevention programs, advocacy, policy development, and support of medical research at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine (BU CSTE). The BU CSTE was created in 2008 as a partnership between SLI, BU, and the Department of Veterans Affairs and conducts cutting-edge clinical and pathological research on the long-term effects of repetitive brain trauma, with a focus on the degenerative brain disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). For more information please visit SportsLegacy.org and HitCount.org or contact Chelsea McLeod, Communications Manager, Sports Legacy Institute (781) 262-3324 [email protected]

Media Contact:
GForceTracker Inc.
905-470-0109
[email protected]

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SOURCE GForceTracker Inc.