What Causes a Concussion?
1. The four different methods, and their limitations, that researchers have used to measure how the skull responds to impact:
• Animal studies
Limitations: applying animal results to humans can be difficult. Concussions were not fully understood during this time of research (i.e. the loss of consciousness for diagnosis).
• Helmet-based accelerometer with an intraoral accelerometer
Limitations: an inaccurate measurement as the helmet absorbs some of the impacting force and thus moves “independent of the skull” Broglio et al. 38).
• Motion capture and post-injury video analysis (Hybrid III test model)
Limitations: 10% error in generation analysis, and 15% in peak values.
• Head Impact Telemetry (HIT)
Limitations: …show more content…
The brain is a delicate organ that sits quietly inside of the skull and is encapsulated by a protective layer cerebrospinal fluid. A concussion occurs when the delicate tissue of the brain is forced into direct contact with the skull due to an external biomechanical acceleratory or declaratory force. The impact of a concussive force can be liner or rotational/angular in nature, and it is the kinematic (Newton’s Laws of Motion) features of the amount force generated by the resultant mass x the acceleration that governs the subsequent impact or transfer of energy to the brain tissue. Newton’s Laws of Motion stipulates that it is the amount of velocity and mass that then collides with another person’s mass and velocity that the amount of energy that is then transferred a may cause a resultant collision or incident of the brain being forced into contact with the …show more content…
Rotational acceleration is a quantitative change in angular direction around a central axis. An object, in this case the head, spins about its axis (the neck) by some vector quantity that results in a magnitude of force or displacement. Linear acceleration is a straight line or change of velocity without changing direction (whiplash effect). Both of these forces can cause great injury to brain structures as they can cause the brain to collide with skull at various angles and aspect.
5. I do not believe that a “concussion-proof” helmet design is possible, at least not at this time. I believe this because of the multiple intrinsic factors presented in this article that are for one hard to account for because they are immeasurable, and two different for each individual. I think that the HIT system may indeed allow us to greater understand human concussion biomechanics, but the nature and understanding of concussions is ever evolving, and we would need to understand that first before a “concussion-proof” could ever be
1. The four different methods, and their limitations, that researchers have used to measure how the skull responds to impact:
• Animal studies
Limitations: applying animal results to humans can be difficult. Concussions were not fully understood during this time of research (i.e. the loss of consciousness for diagnosis).
• Helmet-based accelerometer with an intraoral accelerometer
Limitations: an inaccurate measurement as the helmet absorbs some of the impacting force and thus moves “independent of the skull” Broglio et al. 38).
• Motion capture and post-injury video analysis (Hybrid III test model)
Limitations: 10% error in generation analysis, and 15% in peak values.
• Head Impact Telemetry (HIT)
Limitations: …show more content…
The brain is a delicate organ that sits quietly inside of the skull and is encapsulated by a protective layer cerebrospinal fluid. A concussion occurs when the delicate tissue of the brain is forced into direct contact with the skull due to an external biomechanical acceleratory or declaratory force. The impact of a concussive force can be liner or rotational/angular in nature, and it is the kinematic (Newton’s Laws of Motion) features of the amount force generated by the resultant mass x the acceleration that governs the subsequent impact or transfer of energy to the brain tissue. Newton’s Laws of Motion stipulates that it is the amount of velocity and mass that then collides with another person’s mass and velocity that the amount of energy that is then transferred a may cause a resultant collision or incident of the brain being forced into contact with the …show more content…
Rotational acceleration is a quantitative change in angular direction around a central axis. An object, in this case the head, spins about its axis (the neck) by some vector quantity that results in a magnitude of force or displacement. Linear acceleration is a straight line or change of velocity without changing direction (whiplash effect). Both of these forces can cause great injury to brain structures as they can cause the brain to collide with skull at various angles and aspect.
5. I do not believe that a “concussion-proof” helmet design is possible, at least not at this time. I believe this because of the multiple intrinsic factors presented in this article that are for one hard to account for because they are immeasurable, and two different for each individual. I think that the HIT system may indeed allow us to greater understand human concussion biomechanics, but the nature and understanding of concussions is ever evolving, and we would need to understand that first before a “concussion-proof” could ever be