Women’s World Cup and Instrumented Mouthguards (iMGs)

The next edition of the Women’s Rugby Union World Cup will start on August 22^nd. It will be hosted in England. World Rugby has announced that all players have signed up to be fitted with an iMG.

The iMG is designed to measure impacts during contact in both linear and rotational directions. It was first used at the 2023 edition of the Women’s World Cup. The new iMGs will flash red to indicate to officials and players that the threshold has been exceeded and a mandatory Head Injury Assessment (HIA) is required.

The technology is still in its infancy and medical staff and sports scientists continue to gather the data to understand what level of impact constitutes a health risk for participants. It needs to be determined whether it is a single large impact or cumulative smaller impacts (or both) that can lead to brain damage. Equally, do cumulative impacts sustained over successive games create cognitive impairment?

Rugby and other impact sports need such information to supplement clinical judgement. Luca Health welcomes such initiatives. Luca’s team are involved in assessing other forms of objective data to bring scientific rigour to aid the right decisions being made for athletes.