Development, Validation, & Analysis of Tools to Understand the Biomechanical Basis of Exposure to Repetitive Subconcussive Impacts

An estimated 1.1 to 1.9 million sports-related concussions occur each year in the youth population, with the majority occurring during football. Recent increase in awareness of concussion has motivated research to better understand the prevalence and underlying injury mechanisms of concussion. Athletes who participate in some contact sports, such as football, are not only at a high risk of concussion, but are also exposed to repetitive subconcussive impacts during normal participation in the sport. There has been growing interest in the link between repetitive head impacts and changes in the brain related to neurodegenerative diseases which has motivated additional research to characterize and understand head impact exposure. While recent advances in impact-sensing technology have allowed the collection of real-time impact data, some popular methods such as the skin patch and skull cap, have been shown to be poorly coupled to the skull, and therefore not measuring accurate head kinematics. This has motivated the need for a head impact sensor that is more rigidly coupled with the skull. While various sensors have enabled extensive study of head impact exposure, the biomechanical basis of injury and repetitive subconcussive head impacts is not well understood. Finite element (FE) modeling is a powerful tool that allows evaluation of local and regional strain response to understand its relationship to impact characteristics, such as location, direction and magnitude.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Miller, Logan Elyse

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/93049

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/93049