Scholarly Works, Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10919/24286
Research articles, presentations, and other scholarship

Browse

Browsing Scholarly Works, Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics by Subject "09 Engineering"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Accounting for Variance in Concussion Tolerance Between Individuals: Comparing Head Accelerations Between Concussed and Physically Matched Control Subjects
    Rowson, Steven; Campolettano, Eamon T.; Duma, Stefan M.; Stemper, Brian D.; Shah, Alok S.; Harezlak, Jaroslaw; Riggen, Larry D.; Mihalik, Jason P.; Guskiewicz, Kevin M.; Giza, Christopher C.; Brooks, M. Alison; Cameron, Kenneth L.; McAllister, Thomas W.; Broglio, Steven P.; McCrea, Michael A. (Springer, 2019-10-01)
    Researchers have been collecting head impact data from instrumented football players to characterize the biomechanics of concussion for the past 15 years, yet the link between biomechanical input and clinical outcome is still not well understood. We have previously shown that even though concussive biomechanics might be unremarkable in large datasets of head impacts, the impacts causing injury are of high magnitude for the concussed individuals relative to their impact history. This finding suggests a need to account for differences in tolerance at the individual level. In this study, we identified control subjects for our concussed subjects who demonstrated traits we believed were correlated to factors thought to affect injury tolerance, including height, mass, age, race, and concussion history. A total of 502 college football players were instrumented with helmet-mounted accelerometer arrays and provided complete baseline assessment data, 44 of which sustained a total of 49 concussion. Biomechanical measures quantifying impact frequency and acceleration magnitude were compared between groups. On average, we found that concussed subjects experienced 93.8 more head impacts (p = 0.0031), 10.2 more high magnitude impacts (p = 0.0157), and 1.9 × greater risk-weighted exposure (p = 0.0175) than their physically matched controls. This finding provides further evidence that head impact data need to be considered at the individual level and that cohort wide assessments may be of little value in the context of concussion.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Comparison of Head Impact Exposure Between Concussed Football Athletes and Matched Controls: Evidence for a Possible Second Mechanism of Sport-Related Concussion
    Stemper, Brian D.; Shah, Alok S.; Harezlak, Jaroslaw; Rowson, Steven; Mihalik, Jason P.; Duma, Stefan M.; Riggen, Larry D.; Brooks, M. Alison; Cameron, Kenneth L.; Campbell, Darren E.; DiFiori, John P.; Giza, Christopher C.; Guskiewicz, Kevin M.; Jackson, Jonathan C.; McGinty, Gerald T.; Svoboda, Steven J.; McAllister, Thomas W.; Broglio, Steven P.; McCrea, Michael A.; Hoy, April Marie Reed; Hazzard, Joseph B.; Kelly, Louise A.; Ortega, Justus D.; Port, Nicholas; Putukian, Margot; Langford, T. Dianne; Tierney, Ryan; Goldman, Joshua T.; Benjamin, Holly J.; Buckley, Thomas; Kaminski, Thomas W.; Clugston, James R.; Schmidt, Julianne D.; Feigenbaum, Luis A.; Eckner, James T.; Guskiewicz, Kevin M.; Miles, Jessica Dysart; Anderson, Scott; Master, Christina L.; Collins, Micky; Kontos, Anthony P.; Bazarian, Jeffrey J.; Chrisman, Sara P. O.; McGinty, Gerald T.; O'Donnell, Patrick; Cameron, Kenneth L.; Susmarski, Adam; Bullers, Christopher Todd; Miles, Christopher M.; Dykhuizen, Brian H.; Lintner, Laura (Springer, 2019-10-01)
    Studies of football athletes have implicated repetitive head impact exposure in the onset of cognitive and brain structural changes, even in the absence of diagnosed concussion. Those studies imply accumulating damage from successive head impacts reduces tolerance and increases risk for concussion. Support for this premise is that biomechanics of head impacts resulting in concussion are often not remarkable when compared to impacts sustained by athletes without diagnosed concussion. Accordingly, this analysis quantified repetitive head impact exposure in a cohort of 50 concussed NCAA Division I FBS college football athletes compared to controls that were matched for team and position group. The analysis quantified the number of head impacts and risk weighted exposure both on the day of injury and for the season to the date of injury. 43% of concussed athletes had the most severe head impact exposure on the day of injury compared to their matched control group and 46% of concussed athletes had the most severe head impact exposure for the season to the date of injury compared to their matched control group. When accounting for date of injury or season to date of injury, 72% of all concussed athletes had the most or second most severe head impact exposure compared to their matched control group. These trends associating cumulative head impact exposure with concussion onset were stronger for athletes that participated in a greater number of contact activities. For example, 77% of athletes that participated in ten or more days of contact activities had greater head impact exposure than their matched control group. This unique analysis provided further evidence for the role of repetitive head impact exposure as a predisposing factor for the onset of concussion. The clinical implication of these findings supports contemporary trends of limiting head impact exposure for college football athletes during practice activities in an effort to also reduce risk of concussive injury.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Development of a Concussion Risk Function for a Youth Population Using Head Linear and Rotational Acceleration
    Campolettano, Eamon T.; Gellner, Ryan A.; Smith, Eric P.; Bellamkonda, Srinidhi; Tierney, Casey T.; Crisco, Joseph J.; Jones, Derek A.; Kelley, Mireille E.; Urban, Jillian E.; Stitzel, Joel D.; Genemaras, Amaris; Beckwith, Jonathan G.; Greenwald, Richard M.; Maerlender, Arthur C.; Brolinson, Per Gunnar; Duma, Stefan M.; Rowson, Steven (Springer, 2019-10-28)
    Physical differences between youth and adults, which include incomplete myelination, limited neck muscle development, and a higher head-body ratio in the youth population, likely contribute towards the increased susceptibility of youth to concussion. Previous research efforts have considered the biomechanics of concussion for adult populations, but these known age-related differences highlight the necessity of quantifying the risk of concussion for a youth population. This study adapted the previously developed Generalized Acceleration Model for Brian Injury Threshold (GAMBIT) that combines linear and rotational head acceleration to model the risk of concussion for a youth population with the Generalized Acceleration Model for Concussion in Youth (GAM-CY). Survival analysis was used in conjunction with head impact data collected during participation in youth football to model risk between individuals who sustained medically-diagnosed concussions (n = 15). Receiver operator characteristic curves were generated for peak linear acceleration, peak rotational acceleration, and GAM-CY, all of which were observed to be better injury predictors than random guessing. GAM-CY was associated with an area under the curve of 0.89 (95% confidence interval: 0.82–0.95) when all head impacts experienced by the concussed players were considered. Concussion tolerance was observed to be lower for youth athletes, with average peak linear head acceleration of 62.4 ± 29.7 g compared to 102.5 ± 32.7 g for adults and average peak rotational head acceleration of 2609 ± 1591 rad/s2 compared to 4412 ± 2326 rad/s2. These data provide further evidence of age-related differences in concussion tolerance and may be used for the development of youth-specific protective designs.