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	Space Medicine Spinoffs Help Keep NFL Players Healthy By Jim Banke Senior Producer, posted: 07:00 am ET 02 September 2003

CAPE CANAVERAL

From Liftoff to Kickoff: Space Technology in the NFL
This is part two of a five-part series looking at the many ways the space program has influenced the National Football League, and helped make it the success the game is today.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Mike Ryan, head trainer for the Jacksonville Jaguars, knows there is a strong link between space technology and sports medicine.

As a trainer, it is Ryan's job to help keep the football players healthy and rehabilitate them as quickly as possible when they become injured. Many of the tools of his trade come directly from the medical advances spun off from NASA and the entire aerospace industry.

"I've always been fascinated by the space program," Ryan said, showing off a set of photographs he keeps at his desk of him touring the Kennedy Space Center, visiting the orbiter hangars and posing in front of an intact shuttle Columbia. "We've learned a lot from science."

Technology from a basic weather station all the way to the most sophisticated ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging systems are used by the trainers to keep the athletes playing on the field -- or tell them when they will return.

"We definitely appreciate it, and we take advantage of it," said Marcus Stroud, the Jaguars' starting left defensive tackle. "The technology helps some guys get back on the field faster."

Just the day before, Jaguars defensive lineman Larry Smith collapsed during training camp, an apparent victim of the July heat in Florida. Smith recovered, but was cut from the team Aug. 13. A day later, defensive lineman John Henderson went down from the heat. He also recovered and remains on the team as the starting right defensive tackle.

Both incidents recalled the 2001 loss of Minnesota Viking Korey Stringer, who died from overheating at training camp in Mankato, Minn. Since then the teams around the NFL have been particularly careful to include water breaks and cool down periods during practices.

To help them stay on top of field conditions, Ryan and his colleagues around the league use portable sensors that measure the temperature and humidity.

"We know how hot it is and how hot it gets. We can monitor the environment," said Kevin O'Neill, head trainer of the Miami Dolphins a team that is used to the summer tropical heat and has never had a problem with it.

Technology applied

And at practically every turn, there's a space-related angle to each health gadget's story. Consider:

Digital image processing techniques developed to make pictures of the Moon more clear so the Apollo landing sites could be selected is used today when combining Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Computer-Aided Tomography scans to tell if an image shows tissue damage.
NASA research into radiation technology in 1983 led to one of the first portable X-ray machines. The small device eventually found its way into the NFL, although most stadiums are now equipped with larger, stand-alone X-ray machines.
NASA's desire to know how well its astronauts hearts are beating, especially on longer space missions, led to the development of new, more robust electrodes that could be stuck to the chest to monitor heart rate. The technology has since wound up in use on exercise machines at home and in NFL weight training rooms.

"The equipment changes over time, the way we interact with players in terms of how medical care is provided and what their needs are -- I think all of that continues to evolve," O'Neill said. "Fortunately the NFL is in a position where they're not strapped financially to look for what's new and what's good and what's helpful for their players."

Ultrasound Tops NFL Trainers Tool List

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The high end of the high tech devices used by most of the trainers SPACE.com talked with was ultrasound. Though not a direct spin-off from the space program, the aerospace industry has helped advance the technology.

The study of sound waves and the effect sound has on objects within a fluid goes back hundreds of years. The 1912 sinking of the Titanic led to some practical research being done that resulted in a sort of underwater sonar for detecting ice bergs.

Then during the 1940s there was some rapid advancement as industry found it could inspect metal parts and welds with ultrasound, and medical doctors in the United States and Japan began to consider its use as a diagnostic tool.

Expectant parents or kidney stone sufferers are probably most familiar with ultrasound as an imaging system, but that's not how the NFL trainers use it, the Dolphin's O'Neill said. Instead, by varying the frequency of the sound wave, it becomes a tool to treat injuries, not to detect them.

"It's a sound wave that acts similar to, physiologically, to heat," O'Neill said. "It takes a mechanical form of energy and it works at the cellular level creating what's called cell cavitation, which is actually friction or movement at the cellular level, and in doing so it produces a deep form of heat."

"It helps to increase circulation, blood flow, and when you do that you bring new oxygen into the tissue and hopefully repair what you might have in terms of an injury," O'Neill said.

For a player, recovering from an injury means everything -- especially if their career is at stake. "Their days are numbered and they're trying to maximize their career while they can," Ryan said.

-- Jim Banke