The primary finding of this study is that the helmet-mounted accelerometer system proved effective at collecting thousands of head impact events and providing contemporaneous head impact parameters that can be integrated with existing clinical evaluation techniques.

Each year, between 1.6x10(6) and 3.8x10(6) concussions are sustained by athletes playing sports, with football having the highest incidence. The high number of concussions in football provides a unique opportunity to collect biomechanical data to characterize mild traumatic brain injury. Human head acceleration data for a range of impact severities were collected by instrumenting the helmets of collegiate football players with accelerometers. The helmets of ten Virginia Tech football players were instrumented with measurement devices for every game and practice for the 2007 football season. The measurement devices recorded linear and angular accelerations about each of the three axes of the head. Data for each impact were downloaded wirelessly to a sideline data collection system shortly after each impact occurred. Data were collected for 1712 impacts, creating a large and unbiased data set. While a majority of the impacts were of relatively low severity (<30 g and <2000 rad/s2), 172 impacts were greater than 40 g and 143 impacts were greater than 3000 rad/s2. No instrumented player sustained a clinically diagnosed concussion during the 2007 season. A large and unbiased data set was compiled by instrumenting the helmets of collegiate football players. Football provides a unique opportunity to collect head acceleration data of varying severity from human volunteers. The addition of concurrent concussive data may advance the understanding of the mechanics of mild traumatic brain injury. With an increased understanding of the biomechanics of head impacts in collegiate football and human tolerance to head acceleration, better equipment can be designed to prevent head injuries.

Sports-related concussions result in 300,000 brain injuries in the United States each year. We conducted a study utilizing an in-helmet system that measures and records linear head accelerations to analyze head impacts in collegiate football. The Head Impact Telemetry (HIT) System is an in-helmet system with six spring-mounted accelerometers and an antenna that transmits data via radio frequency to a sideline receiver and laptop computer system. A total of 11,604 head impacts were recorded from the Virginia Tech football team throughout the 2003 and 2004 football seasons during 22 games and 62 practices from a total of 52 players. Although the incidence of injury data are limited, this study presents an extremely large data set from human head impacts that provides valuable insight into the lower limits of head acceleration that cause mild traumatic brain injuries.

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On-field documentation of return to play decision making has not been widely discussed or systematically studied. In the ACC, most institutions record clinically relevant athletic injury data on-site at the time of evaluation and later prepare a full note describing the evaluation and return to play decisions. We discuss a laminated card-based and a handheld computer-based system as 2 methods for efficient documentation of sideline treatment and return to play decisions. Commercial products and sideline information management and data collection are also discussed.