PROTECTING OUR PLAYERS

The UK’s Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) has just completed  its first season using INCISIV’s ground-breaking virtual reality (VR) technology, MOViR. The goal? To protect players from the dangers of brain injury.

Using MOViR, the EIHL could detect changes in brain health before and after injury. MOViR put players through a variety of assessments, testing balance, memory/cognition, manual dexterity, and decision-making. These tests helped to identify whether a knock to the head had impacted a player’s ability to make precise, intentional movements. INCISIV calls this ability 'Neural Fitness'- in ice hockey, it's at least as important as physical fitness.

A HARD KNOCK LIFE

As standards in the EIHL rapidly improve,  players get stronger and faster which unfortunately means that they also start taking harder knocks.

This is where MOViR can help. By presenting immersive assessments in a standardized way,  MOViR’s technology ensures that each player gets the same level of testing, regardless of who administers it. Anyone, from a doctor to an equipment manager, can perform post-injury assessments with the same accuracy.

Furthermore, the technology tracks every baseline and post-injury assessment, meaning players have a unique brain health passport that travels with them should they transfer teams.

WHY BASELINES MATTER

At the beginning of the season, the INCISIV team hit the road, traveling across the UK to baseline the neural fitness of over 200 players. They visited the Belfast Giants, Cardiff Devils, Fife Flyers, Dundee Stars, Glasgow Clan, Guildford Flames, Nottingham Panthers, Sheffield Steelers, Coventry Blaze, and Manchester Storm.

The league can't predict which players will get injured, so baseline tests are crucial for understanding each player’s “normal” neural fitness and identifying when something is amiss.

OUTCOMES

🏒 217 Players baselined across the 10 EIHL teams during the 2022/23 season

🥽 500 VR sessions administered (baselines and post-injury combined)

🤕 22 head injuries carefully monitored using MOViR (a whopping 10% of all the baselined players)

📝 61 post-injury reports were sent to each team, providing medical staff with better knowledge and understanding of the severity of head injuries, allowing informed decisions to be made

NEW HORIZONS

As UK ice hockey players impress more and more and make a name for themselves internationally, many are being snapped up by North American and European leagues. This presents a unique opportunity for these leagues to adopt VR technology so as to safeguard the well-being of their own players. To keep your team’s players' brains in tip-top shape, just drop an email to info@incisiv.tech. Get started today!

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