Brain injury risk estimation of collegiate football player based on game video of concussion suspected accident

The collision accident in collegiate football game was simulated based on the game video and the concussive impact on the head was analyzed. First, the collision motion of players was reproduced based on the video by using motion analysis, and the translational and rotational velocities, relative position and contact location of the struck and the striking players’ heads just before the collision were calculated. Then the data obtained were input to two helmeted finite element (FE) human head models as the initial condition, and the brain injury risk was evaluated by using the impact analysis. The FE helmet model was validated by a drop test of the helmet in which the head impactor was embedded. In the present study, two concussion suspected accident cases were analyzed; then the concussion was evaluated by ten mechanical parameters generated inside the skull caused by the collision. The injury risk evaluated by multi parameters belonged to the dangerous range that may cause concussion and was consistent with the diagnosis of the medical team doctor. The brain injury risk can be successfully estimated by the reconstructed simulation of the game video and FE analysis. To our knowledge, this study is the first attempt in Japan to estimate the brain injury risk systematically by a combination of game video analysis which is originally introduced for the players’ health care and FE analysis by helmeted human head model. In the future, brain injury risk caused by an accident can be evaluated with higher accuracy by analyzing more accident cases.