The neurotechnology company, SyncThink, has an FDA approved VR eye tracking system for post-injury brain and ocular assessment and treatment. SyncThink’s EYE-SYNC is now being used by the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks performance and medical staff to help monitor players. The team is using it to track eye fatigue, which is a preventative measure to assess any risks to a players health and their performance throughout the season.
What SyncThink EYE-SYNC Does
SyncThink’s EYE-SYNC tracking and analytics platform use Virtual Reality (VR) to perform assessments that measure ocular motor impairment, vestibular-balance dysfunction (VOR), cognitive fatigue (SCAT5), and assess any migraine/headache and cervical spine symptoms.
The $500 SyncThink EYE-SYNC kit is a weekly rental with a flexible return and reordering system. The kit is a potentially life-saving measure that all athletics and training programs should be equipped with. Not just at the professional level but at all competitive levels.
How the Atlanta Hawks are Using SyncThink
The Atlanta Hawks are joining SyncThink users like NBA Champions the Golden State Warriors, PAC 12, Massachusetts General Hospital Sports Physical Therapy, and many other programs. These programs are using the FDA backed neurotechnology on mobile devices (tablets) with quick, 60-second assessments.
Sports-related head injuries from basketball and other sports like football, baseball, softball, and water sports ranked the highest for hospital ER visits for 2009, according to AANS. Gathering data on a tablet and then presenting that information to a doctor at an office while you’re still courtside, poolside, or on the field is convenient. But it’s also helpful for accessing health treatment and implementing interventions quicker than ever.
Laura Yecies, CEO of ThinkSync, gave a statement sharing that, “We are thrilled that the Atlanta Hawks have selected SyncThink as part of their ambitious health and performance optimization plan.” Giving teams a way to help athletes stay in peak health and conditioning with data is important to the player but is also pivotal to the team as a whole.
It also helps medical teams identify, track and treat injured and rehabilitating players as well as help them evaluate visual acuity or dynamic vision. Dynamic vision is how clearly we see and is important for sports due to lots of movement occurring. If there’s fatigue or the brain or eye is injured or damaged then SyncThink’s EYE-SYNC system helps identify it.
“The Atlanta Hawks are an ideal partner for us in many ways,” SyncThink CCO Scott Anderson said. “As we partner with more cutting-edge organizations, we’re realizing they too have novel ideas about how they want to utilize and interpret the data they’re collecting, in an effort to better understand fatigue and the risks associated with poor visual attention. It’s very exciting to consider the possibilities.”
Where to Get SyncThink
Athletics teams, medical and training teams, and organizations that would benefit from SyncThink EYE-SYNC’s VR-enabled technology should go to their website at the top link. The kit is taken anywhere a team goes because it’s used with mobile VR and a tablet. The EYE-SYNC kit goes for $500 per week and has been used in medical settings, by the U.S. military, and is being used in athletics for various eye-tracking uses.
