Whether it's on the football field or battlefield, head trauma can have lasting effects. Making matters more dangerous is the fact that these injuries, from the time of initial impact, often remain invisible and undetected.
This may now be subject to change. That's because a team of researchers have developed a color-changing polymer that can detect head trauma immediately, depending on how hard the impact of the hit is.
They'll present this technology at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, August 17 through August 20. The goal is to eventually use this material in a revamped, bolstered protective headgear — which will be able to immediately signal head trauma of any kind.
The color-changing polymer could prevent additional injury, according to Shu Yang, who worked on the science and technology of the color-changing patch with her team at the University of Pennsylvania.
"If the force was large enough, and you could easily tell that, then you could immediately seek medical attention," she explained about the patch in a recent press release.
Yang's team first used holographic lithography and created photonic crystals, giving off color, but the process was deemed to be too expensive to sustain over mass production. They then looked to self-assembly and polymer-based materials, which were cheaper and more suitable for the cause.
"We were able to change the color consistently with certain forces," Yang said. "This force is right in the range of a blast injury or a concussion."
If this is proven over time and can lead to better protective headgear, it'd be a great advantage to athletes in contact sports like football, where concussions and head trauma overall run rampant, not to mention the battlefield for soldiers.
