Parents with kids playing sports have to worry about injuries every time their children take the field.
"Well my hope and prayer is that they go to the game safe, and to their practice safe, and they come back safe, and not worse than when they left," says Kelli Wilson, a mother of five boys.
Concussions are one of the major injuries Wilson worries about.
With five sons, she has had concussion scares before during he son's football games:
"He ended up in the emergency room and that was our concern that he either had a neck injury or a head injury," Wilson explains.
Fortunately, her son wasn't seriously injured.
For schools, one of the biggest issues is repeat concussions. If a player sustains a head injury, but doesn't show any symptoms, they might go back into the game and take another big hit.
That's what John Johnson of the Michigan High School Athletic Association says needs to stop.
"Second impact syndrome is a terrible thing," describes Johnson, "you know we'll always have to play the drum on this one."
Because symptoms of a concussion may not show for more than 24 hours, it's important to know when a player could have sustained the injury. That's what this new headband is for. If a player takes a hit to the head, they can take it off and check a strip to see if it could have caused a concussion. If it shows stars, the designers say the player may be seeing stars themselves.
"We wanted to provide an intuitive, reliable way that they can open it, see it, and say 'likelihood of an injury is high, please say you're going to sit down and we would really encourage you to seek medical professional evaluation."
Marcos Dantus is one of the professors who developed the headband. He and Gary Blanchard are professors of chemistry at MSU and undertook the project without knowing what it would become.
Their goal was to make an affordable device for families. They say professional sports teams, and many college teams, in several sports, will have a doctor on the sidelines. But high school sports, and sports for younger players, likely don't have a medical professional able to evaluate a player if they take a big hit.
That's why it was so important for them to develop this device. Because "return to game" decisions are so vital, and sometimes have to be made in a split second.
The headband gives the coaches a good indication of if a player may have sustained a concussion, even if they don't show any symptoms.
It can't guarantee that a player got a concussion, but it will give coaches an indicator that they should sit the athlete to stay cautious.
And for that, Wilson says it's huge.
"It's worth it. Anything to help prevent it or anything to gauge it so we know how damaging--or the extent of the damage could be, it's worth it."
