Session: 06-01-02: Injury and Damage Biomechanics II - Organ and Tissue Injury Biomechanics 2

Paper Number: 137291

137291 - Presentation of an Injury Reconstruction Methodology to Assess Impact Severity and Injury Risks in Soccer 

In this paper, we propose a methodology for evaluating the risk of injury using in-game video footage and on-sight landmarks during a soccer match for the purpose of head injury evaluations. While computational reconstructions of an incident typically require the use of multiple cameras and markers, we show that landmarks can be used to reconstruct an incident for forensic purposes and to identify correlation mechanisms on injuries, especially those that occur during athletic competitions with the potential for severe adverse effects. 

Soccer is a sport played worldwide by athletes of all ages. Despite the reduced contact in soccer compared to sports such as football, concussive injuries remain a concern throughout the sport. A greater concern exists for the injuries caused by sub-concussive impacts, generally caused by contact between the player’s head and the soccer ball. Injuries that are below the concussive threshold are particularly concerning due to the potential injury being undiagnosed, resulting in the continual play of an athlete risking further adverse injurious scenarios. In the current literature, injuries caused by soccer ball impacts are poorly understood. This is likely due to the difficulty in identifying brain injuries throughout soccer matches due to the sub-concussive nature of these impacts. As such, an improved understanding of these injuries is warranted for the purpose of better-protecting athletes who participate in this game.

            Our study seeks to propose a methodology to reconstruct the impact between a soccer player and an athlete’s head, which resulted in the temporary loss of consciousness of the athlete using publicly available game footage and computational methodologies. The injury scenario is reconstructed using video analysis tools to supply boundary conditions for finite element simulations using existing finite element models of an adult human head and regulation-sized soccer ball. The results of this study show that surveillance footage of sports impacts can be successfully coupled with computational models to produce values describing the severity and risk of brain injuries. The results of this study are presented through multiple existing kinematic metrics, which have been used for quantifying brain injury risks in previous studies such as HIC₁₅ and BrIC. Also, peak stress, strain, and Cumulative Strain Damage Measure (CSDM) values throughout the brain parenchyma are computed. These values can be combined with future studies to develop injury risk curves representative of impacts causing head trauma in soccer. This information will improve the current understanding of mTBI injuries and enhance athletes' protection. 

Presenting Author: Amirhamed Bakhtiarydavijani Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems, Mississippi State Univeristy

Presenting Author Biography: Dr. Bakhtiary is a Research Engineer at the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems at Mississippi State University. He focuses on the development of physics-based multiscale computational material models, injury biomechanics, and dynamic testing of soft tissue. Dr. Bakhtiary has a Ph.D in Biomedical Engineering from Mississippi State University and an M.Sc in material science and engineering from the Sharif University of Technology.

Authors:

Richard Perkins University of South Alabama College of Medicine
Amirhamed Bakhtiarydavijani Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems, Mississippi State Univeristy
Raj Prabhu Universities Space Research Association