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Sports Seriously
- The Q-Collar is a new device designed to reduce brain sloshing during impacts, potentially mitigating the risk of concussions in athletes.
- The FDA has cleared the Q-Collar for athletes 13 and older, stating its probable benefits outweigh its probable risks, though it hasn’t definitively proven to prevent concussions.
- Some experts express concern that the Q-Collar may create a false sense of security and potentially worsen certain brain injuries.
- High-profile athletes like NFL cornerback Sauce Gardner endorse the Q-Collar, citing its comfort and added protection.
Palm Beach County public schools started their new school year Aug. 11 — and that means high school football season can’t be far behind.
Florida (along with California and Texas) is among the most football-talent-laden states in the nation. And with such elite and fierce competition at both the youth and interscholastic levels, these young athletes are, of course, at risk of suffering a host of injuries.
Among the most serious — and potentially life-altering: concussions and cumulative sub-concussive trauma to the brain.
Violent collisions happen on every play during a football game, opening the door to the possibility of concussion. Concussions typically occur in one of two ways: A player suffers a direct blow to the skull, or some other part of a player’s body absorbs an impact that creates a sudden whiplash effect on the head.
(It should be noted that there’s also a high incidence of concussions in team sports such as soccer, lacrosse and ice hockey, among others.)
In recent years, football equipment manufacturers have developed new helmets that are designed to better safeguard the skull, and padded, soft-shell helmet coverings such as Guardian Caps add an extra layer of protection.
Conversely, preventing the most dire consequences of collision-related whiplash — which younger athletes are especially at risk for because their neck strength is less developed than older athletes — has long confounded experts.
However, there is a relatively new — and remarkably simple — device that professes to do just that.
It’s called the Q-Collar.
How the Q-Collar works
The original concept for the Q-Collar is credited to board-certified internist Dr. David Smith. As the origin story goes, Smith noticed that when woodpeckers banged their heads when pecking, their physiology — specifically, the way their contracting neck muscles sent extra blood to their brain — appeared to protect their brains from injury.
The Q-Collar, which is manufactured by Q30 Innovations, is a lightweight, horseshoe-shaped device that applies light pressure to the neck. The pressure lightly squeezes the jugular veins, producing a slight increase in blood volume inside the player’s head.
The extra blood inside the head is purported to help reduce what the manufacturer calls “brain slosh” — i.e., the rapid acceleration and deceleration of the brain during a collision. This rapid acceleration and deceleration stretch and tear brain fibers, resulting in traumatic brain injury.
Q30 Innovations, which says it spent a decade testing and developing its product, claims that the pressure “helps reduce the brain’s movement upon impact, which is the primary cause of brain injury. Similar to a seatbelt in a car, the Q-Collar helps to keep the brain more secure during impacts.”
In February 2021, the Q-Collar was cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a safe and effective product for athletes 13 years and older to help protect the brain from the effects of repeated head impacts.
Stars in multiple sports using Q-Collar
Several NFL players, as well as professional lacrosse and soccer players, are wearing a Q-Collar during practice and competition.
Among the most high-profile NFL players to don the Q-Collar is New York Jets star cornerback Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner.
Gardner says he first discovered the Q-Collar in 2024 while researching ways to enhance his on-field protection. After purchasing one and using it during the 2024 season, he believed it did what it was professed to do, so he approached Q30 Innovations about helping get the word out about the Q-Collar’s efficacy.
While appearing last month on The Pat McAfee Show, Gardner noted that the device is lightweight, comfortable, durable and “I love the way it looks. But more importantly, it gives me peace of mind knowing I’m taking the extra step to better protect my brain while still playing at the highest level.”
The athletic and medical advisors associated with Q30 Innovations include some notable names. Among them: Former New York Giants linebacker Carl Banks (a two-time Super Bowl champion), former All-Pro tight end Vernon Davis, and neurosurgeon Dr. Julian Bailes, a founding member of the Brain Injury Research Institute and one of the nation’s foremost authorities on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have been subjected to multiple concussions and other forms of head injury.
The Q-Collar weighs around 4 ounces and is made of a stainless-steel spring that is covered by silicone urethane elastomer mold.
There are two versions: Q-Collar, which is designed for athletes, and runs $199; and Q-Collar Tactical, a $249 device that is designed to provide military-grade protection for soldiers from head and brain injuries caused by the blast waves produced by missiles, ballistics, artillery, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and shoulder-fired weapons.
Some are skeptical about Q-Collar’s efficacy, safety
Not all traumatic brain injury experts believe in the Q-Collar. According to ABC News, the 2021 FDA authorization included a statement that “the Q-Collar hasn’t shown [clinically proven] efficacy in preventing concussions or serious head injury.”
And the Concussion Alliance noted that “numerous professionals have raised concerns that the Q-Collar may do more harm than good” because those wearing it would feel “a false sense of security” and that if a person who is wearing the Q-Collar does suffer a brain injury that caused increased pressure inside the skull, the compression on the neck veins could significantly exacerbate the injury.
In 2023, as the Q-Collar started becoming more widely used, the FDA updated its opinion on the device, stating that its “probable benefits” outweigh the “probable risks.”
The bottom line on the Q-Collar appears to be that, while it may offer some level of protection to athletes in high-impact sport, it’s not a panacea — and that vigilance about concussion awareness and diagnosis in athletes of all ages remains an absolute must.
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