Analysis of concussions in professional ice hockey

Abstract: Head injuries such as concussions is a major problem in full contact sports like ice hockey, these injuries usually leads to rehabilitation and absence from sports as result. This risk in full contact sport is something athletes in these sports must expect, however to gain a better understanding of these injuries and reduce the number concussions would be a great progress. This master thesis will investigate through video analysis in motion tracking software Skillspector velocities in moment of the body check. These velocities will form the basis of the LS-Dyna simulation to conduct when concussion may occur. The video footage was mostly from NHL but some others are present all collected from YouTube. No special selection was made other than HD quality and some statement where concussions had occurred, a small reference group of non-concussed players was also collected to compare some results. In total 31 concussions and 7 non concussion cases were evaluated. The average of these hits resulted in 6.87m/s for the attacking player, 4.46 for the concussed player, linear acceleration 657 m/s2, rotational acceleration 6883 rad/s2 and a HIC value of 731. For the players not receiving a concussion the average values were 5.83 m/s for the attacker, 3.53m/s for the targeted players resulting in linear acceleration of 385 m/s2, rotational acceleration 5474 rad/s2 and a HIC of 309.