Question

How does hockey equipment (helmets, neck guard, mouth guard, padding & skates) for injury prevention relate to clinical biomechanics?

Answer 1

In any sports there is always a risk on concussion, which is readily prevented by using helmets and hence relates to clinical biomechanics.

When the head is impacted, the skull accelerates the brain lags behind causing it to strike against the cranium, which leads to concussion which could potentially lead to permanent brain damage. Kinematic characteristics of a head impact are thought to be indicative of the nature of the strain experienced by the brain. Traditionally, both linear and rotational skull accelerations, are the primary kinematic parameters related to brain injury. The two types of acceleration are thought to result in two different injury mechanisms, linear acceleration is thought to cause transient intracranial pressure gradients resulting in more focal injury, while rotational acceleration is thought to cause shear strain from relative motion at the skull-brain interface resulting in more diffuse injury.

These kinds of injuries can be potentially avoided by carefully planning out a safe window of acceleration that the head can be susceptible to without causing brain damage. This case is extensively handled by clinical biomechanics in designing and studying the effects regarding this phenomena.