Do Guardian Caps Help Reduce Concussion?

Pediatric Sports Medicine Podcast - A podcast by Mark Halstead

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  You may have noticed the large puffy extensions on some football helmets in recent years. They are kind of hard to miss. The NFL recommended the Guardian Caps to certain positions for preseason in 2022 and extended their use recently now allowing them for use in regular and postseason play for the 2024 season. While uptake was much lower in the regular season than preseason, the big question is, do they help reduce the likelihood of getting a concussion? As with most NFL data, we don’t have that readily publicly available, and it typically isn’t published. With the NFL adopting something, that typically trickles down to the levels below. No question I’ve seen more high school and younger teams adopting the Guardian Caps as well. What do we know about concussions at that level? Today on the podcast I have the lead author from a recently published article which also won the award for the best research article at the AMSSM annual meeting in 2024 about Guardian Caps to discuss their findings.    Connect with The Host! Subscribe to This Podcast Now!        The ultimate success for every podcaster – is FEEDBACK! Be sure to take just a few minutes to tell the hosts of this podcast what YOU think over at Apple Podcasts! It takes only a few minutes but helps the hosts of this program pave the way to future greatness! Not an Apple Podcasts user? No problem! Be sure to check out any of the other many growing podcast directories online to find this and many other podcasts via The Podcaster Matrix!       Housekeeping -- Get the whole story about Dr. Mark and his launch into this program, by listing to