Athlete Health and Safety is our top priority at HITIQ. With HITIQ’s PROTEQT instrumented mouthguard you now have access to valuable data about your head impacts.
DAMAGE Severity Index (DSI), as measured by HITIQ's PROTEQT mouthguard, is a metric that measures the potential for brain injury during head impacts. It's based on rigorous scientific research and provides a reliable way to quickly estimate brain strain. By using this data, you can gain valuable insights into how to keep safe while playing sports. If a DSI score returns a high value we recommend medical evaluation and advice through our telehealth partners to continue your care.
DSI uses a calculation that estimates the strain on the brain during an impact, and then normalizes that calculation to a 0-100 scale, where a DSI score of 75 or higher indicates a potentially high risk impact and a recommended medical evaluation through the HITIQ PROTEQT App. You can read more about the calculation below.
Head impacts in sports can sometimes lead to serious brain injuries, even if there are no obvious signs. These injuries can be caused by the brain moving and twisting inside the skull, especially from rotational forces (like a twisting motion) and are less obvious to track.
The HITIQ PROTEQT mouthguard, by measuring DSI, helps us capture these rotational forces and their potential impact on the brain in real time.
Returning a high DSI score (>75) we recommend that you seek medical evaluation. You can do this through the HITIQ PROTEQT app. There are also subjective questions which help further define your symptoms and may be helpful for medical professionals. We provide the ability to access timely health treatments through the app via HITIQ’s CONNEQT System and our health partners.
By directly linking your personalised head impact data, coupling it with world leading brain health research and calculating risk, HIT IQ is the only end-to-end point of continuous and timely brian health care.
Damage Severity Index (DSI) calculates the “DAMAGE” which stands for "Diffuse Axonal Multi-Axis General Evaluation". It is a validated way of the HITIQ's PROTEQT mouthguard to quickly and accurately estimate the "strain" or stress on your brain during a head impact. It then applies a score of the DAMAGE to the app.
Think of the metric measuring the stretching a rubber band – too much stretching can wear out the matter and can cause damage to the brian tissue.The HITIQ PROTEQT mouthguard uses the DAMAGE Severity Index (DSI) metric to help understand how much "stretching" the brain might experience during an impact.
Stretching can also be referred to as “strain” or, “brain strain”.
The PROTEQT mouthguard is equipped with sensors that track how the head moves during an impact, specifically the twisting or rotational motion. This information is then used to calculate the DAMAGE metric, which estimates the strain on the brain. This data is then available for review. This is much faster and simpler than complex computer simulations, allowing for quick assessments of potential injury risk.
Yes. The DAMAGE metric is based on solid scientific research by Gabler et al., 2019. It has been validated against a large database of real-world head impacts. This database includes helmet tests, car crash tests, sled tests, and even data from human volunteers. HITIQ uses this validated science to provide the DAMAGE data through the HITIQ PROTEQT mouthguard app.
It's important to remember that we are always learning more about brain impacts and injuries. The DAMAGE metric is a significant step forward, and HITIQ's PROTEQT mouthguard brings that science to you. HITIQ is committed to ongoing development and improvement to enhance the safety of athletes and will continue to refine and update brain health models to ensure the highest order of research is available to you as a customer.
Athlete Health and Safety is our top priority at HITIQ. With HITIQ’s PROTEQT instrumented mouthguard you now have access to valuable data about your head impacts.
DAMAGE Severity Index (DSI), as measured by HITIQ's PROTEQT mouthguard, is a metric that measures the potential for brain injury during head impacts. It's based on rigorous scientific research and provides a reliable way to quickly estimate brain strain. By using this data, you can gain valuable insights into how to keep safe while playing sports. If a DSI score returns a high value we recommend medical evaluation and advice through our telehealth partners to continue your care.
DSI uses a calculation that estimates the strain on the brain during an impact, and then normalizes that calculation to a 0-100 scale, where a DSI score of 75 or higher indicates a potentially high risk impact and a recommended medical evaluation through the HITIQ PROTEQT App. You can read more about the calculation below.
Head impacts in sports can sometimes lead to serious brain injuries, even if there are no obvious signs. These injuries can be caused by the brain moving and twisting inside the skull, especially from rotational forces (like a twisting motion) and are less obvious to track.
The HITIQ PROTEQT mouthguard, by measuring DSI, helps us capture these rotational forces and their potential impact on the brain in real time.
Returning a high DSI score (>75) we recommend that you seek medical evaluation. You can do this through the HITIQ PROTEQT app. There are also subjective questions which help further define your symptoms and may be helpful for medical professionals. We provide the ability to access timely health treatments through the app via HITIQ’s CONNEQT System and our health partners.
By directly linking your personalised head impact data, coupling it with world leading brain health research and calculating risk, HIT IQ is the only end-to-end point of continuous and timely brian health care.
Damage Severity Index (DSI) calculates the “DAMAGE” which stands for "Diffuse Axonal Multi-Axis General Evaluation". It is a validated way of the HITIQ's PROTEQT mouthguard to quickly and accurately estimate the "strain" or stress on your brain during a head impact. It then applies a score of the DAMAGE to the app.
Think of the metric measuring the stretching a rubber band – too much stretching can wear out the matter and can cause damage to the brian tissue.The HITIQ PROTEQT mouthguard uses the DAMAGE Severity Index (DSI) metric to help understand how much "stretching" the brain might experience during an impact.
Stretching can also be referred to as “strain” or, “brain strain”.
The PROTEQT mouthguard is equipped with sensors that track how the head moves during an impact, specifically the twisting or rotational motion. This information is then used to calculate the DAMAGE metric, which estimates the strain on the brain. This data is then available for review. This is much faster and simpler than complex computer simulations, allowing for quick assessments of potential injury risk.
Yes. The DAMAGE metric is based on solid scientific research by Gabler et al., 2019. It has been validated against a large database of real-world head impacts. This database includes helmet tests, car crash tests, sled tests, and even data from human volunteers. HITIQ uses this validated science to provide the DAMAGE data through the HITIQ PROTEQT mouthguard app.
It's important to remember that we are always learning more about brain impacts and injuries. The DAMAGE metric is a significant step forward, and HITIQ's PROTEQT mouthguard brings that science to you. HITIQ is committed to ongoing development and improvement to enhance the safety of athletes and will continue to refine and update brain health models to ensure the highest order of research is available to you as a customer.
Impact IQ Technology is the foundation of how we interpret your mouthguard data and give you confidence in head impacts we report through the PROTEQT concussion management system.
Impact IQ communicates to the user the raw data being recorded by the mouthguards. We then digest this data through our algorithms and then classify impacts based upon internal and published research on what we understand to be ‘true’ impacts.
We currently present two forms of head impact data:
This is raw data collected from the mouthguard in its most basic form. They are subjected to a simple data processing pipeline. This data has not been treated by any trained algorithms to determine a head impact and rather, determined impacts are movements across an X, Y, Z axis in a set time frame or threshold.
Triggered instrumented mouthguard recordings from Head Acceleration Events (HAE) undergo several stages of Quality Assurance (QA) before being defined as a legitimate impact.
After the QA process, the algorithm sets the threshold for a head impact at 8G. The algorithm considers various factors, such as whether the head impact is an acceleration event, if the mouthguard is properly seated on the tooth, and differentiating between vocalization characteristics in the raw data and other related factors concerning the accelerometer's center of gravity.
While the algorithm is not classifying the outcome of the head impact, this information can help inform users of what is more likely to be legitimate versus ‘noise’ when recording head impacts.
Further, HIT IQ is always improving head impact classification data through novel data science and machine learning protocols. This will enhance the future data classification and consolidate the confidence that the data provides to users to ensure head impact monitoring is accurate and fit for purpose.
Impact IQ Detected Events - Impact IQ Detected Events are raw mouthguard data showing movements across X, Y, and Z axes within set thresholds, without any algorithmic classification of head impacts
Impact IQ True Impacts - are mouthguard-recorded head acceleration events that pass multiple QA stages and an 8G threshold algorithm to identify likely legitimate impacts by filtering out noise based on factors like mouthguard fit and vocalisation characteristics.
Stitt et al. Study Confirms Strong Correlation and Low Error Rates for HITIQ Mouthguards
Field et al. Pilot Study Shows High Sensitivity and Predictive Value for HITIQ Mouthguards in On-Field Scenarios
Goodin et al. Unpublished Study Highlights HITIQ's High-Performing, Cross-Sport Impact Classifier
