Despite over 70% of all football players in the US being under the age of 14, previous research has focused primarily on high school and collegiate football players. With the goal of learning more about the distribution of head impact exposure in the youth population, this study aimed to compare head impact exposure data (frequency and magnitude) between practices and games on football players ages 9 to 14. One hundred thirty-six players from six teams were recruited and equipped with the HIT (Head Impact Telemetry) system enabling impact exposure data collection at every practice and game for a total of 482 sessions. Over a period of two seasons, 49,847 impacts from 345 practices and 137 games were recorded. Individual players sustained a median of 211 impacts with a highest of 1226 impacts per season, with a 50th and 95th percentile peak linear acceleration of 18.3 g and 46.9 g. The 50th and 95th percentile peak rotational acceleration were 1305.4 rad/s2 and 3316.6 rad/s2 respectively and the 50th and 95th peak percentile HITsp, a severity measure, were 13.7 and 24.3, respectively. Overall, players with a higher frequency of head impacts at practice recorded a higher frequency of head impacts at games. While there were differences in total number of head impacts an individual player received per season among each of the six teams, there was a positive correlation between the head impact frequencies players sustained at practices and at games. Moreover, players with higher magnitudes of head impacts during practice also recorded higher magnitudes of head impacts during games. Essentially, for every individual player, there was a positive significant linear relationship between the head impact exposure values for games and for practices.
Bellamkonda, Srinidhi,
"Head Impact Exposure in Youth Football Players at Practices and Games"
(2017).
Biomedical Engineering Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0FF3QSQ
