Characterization of head impact exposure in boys’ youth ice hockey

ABSTRACT

Ice hockey has one of the highest concussion rates among youth sports. Sensor technology has been implemented in contact and collision sports to inform the frequency and severity of head impacts experienced on-ice. However, existing studies have utilized helmet-mounted sensors with limited accuracy. The objective of this study was to characterize head kinematics of contact events in a sample of youth boys’ hockey players using a validated instrumented mouthpiece with improved accuracy. Head kinematics from 892 video-verified events were recorded from 18 athletes across 127 sessions. Median peak resultant linear acceleration, rotational velocity, and rotational acceleration of video-verified events were 7.4 g, 7.7 rad/s, and 576 rad/s², respectively. Contact events occurred at a higher rate in games (2.48 per game) than practices (1.30 per practice). Scenarios involving head contact had higher peak kinematics than those without head contact. This study improves our understanding of head kinematics in boys’ youth hockey.

KEYWORDS:

• Subconcussive impact
• head impact exposure
• youth
• ice hockey
• head kinematics

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Childress Institute for Paediatric Trauma for supporting this study and Triad Alliance Hockey Association for participating in this study. The authors thank Konstantina Strates for project management and study organization, Nicole Rogers, Jordan Rahm, and Autumn Knight for supporting data collection and video analyses, and Richard Metzler Jr. and Gabriella Milef for supporting video review. The mouthpiece technology presented herein is patent pending.

Disclosure statement

Dr. Joel D. Stitzel and Dr. Jillian E. Urban have a patent pending on the mouthpiece instrumentation described herein.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma.