The effects of anticipation and player involvement in body collisions on head impact biomechanics (2012)

Undergraduate: Katherine Moise

Faculty Advisor: Jason Mihalik
Department: Exercise & Sport Science

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Football accounts for 55% of all concussions in collegiate athletics and 6.8% of all injuries in collegiate football. The two primary purposes of this study were to examine whether anticipated head impacts resulted in greater measures of head impact biomechanics than unanticipated head impacts, and to determine if the player being struck, rather than the striking player, would experience more severe head impact biomechanics. The secondary purpose of this study was to study the interaction between these same two factors and the location of head impact (i.e. back, front, side, or top). This study included collegiate football players. Data were analyzed using random intercepts general linear mixed models. We did not observe a significant main effect for player anticipation or player involvement on our measures of head impact biomechanics. There was a significant interaction between player anticipation and location of impact for linear acceleration, rotational acceleration, and HITsp. There was also a significant interaction between player involvement and location of impact for these same biomechanical measures.