Hayley talking video

LONDON, Ont. — Hayley Wickenheiser’s reasons for helping develop video game technology to treat concussions are close to her heart.

The four-time Olympic gold medallist in women’s hockey remembers the dizziness and nausea she felt after taking a hit in a Swedish men’s pro league in 2008.

Wickenheiser also witnessed the deterioration of friend and former NHL player Steve Montador, who was diagnosed after his death in 2015 with chronic traumatic encephalopath

Wickenheiser co-chairs the advisory board of Highmark Interactive, a Toronto digital therapeutics company developing video games to diagnose and treat concussion and brain injuries. She’s joined on the board by former New Jersey Devils captain Bryce Salvador, snowboarder Mark McMorris and Pittsburgh Penguins director of sport science Andy O’Brien.

Connections

“Everyone involved with this project had a bit of a connection to head trauma in some way shape or form,” Wickenheiser said. “Losing Steve Montador who was one of my best friends to ... he obviously had CTE which we found out after he passed away. Watching him degrade as a person over the years, I think looking back after he passed away, I felt ‘Is there something I can do to honour Steve that will be to continue down this road and help other people?”’

Highmark is 12 to 18 months away from going to market with the games, according to founder Dr. Sanjeev Sharma.

“The hope would be, eventually, we would have a game that, depending on symptoms, patients could play and it would help raise their threshold for what they can do on a computer screen before they have symptoms,” he said. “Slowly and gradually we’d raise that threshold to bring it back to normal.”