Publications by authors named "Jefferson Bercaw"
Purpose: Measuring head kinematics data is important to understand and develop methods and standards to mitigate head injuries in contact sports. Instrumented mouthguards (iMGs) have been developed to address coupling issues with previous sensors. Although validated with anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs), there is limited post-mortem human subjects (PMHS) data which provides more accurate soft tissue responses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Instrumented mouthguard systems (iMGs) are being tested for their accuracy in measuring head movements during sports, especially in real human cadaver heads rather than on dummies.
- In a study, two different types of boil-and-bite iMGs were used on unembalmed cadaver heads, fitted with helmets and subjected to impact tests at various velocities.
- Results showed that while one iMG performed reasonably under certain conditions, both systems had inconsistencies with reference measurements, underscoring the need for further validation in real-life scenarios to improve their effectiveness.
Injury risk assessment based on cadaver data is essential for informing safety standards. The common 'matched-pair' method matches energy-based inputs to translate human response to anthropometric test devices (ATDs). However, this method can result in less conservative human injury risk curves due to intrinsic differences between human and ATDs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The objective of this study was to utilize an instrumented mouthpiece sensor to characterize head kinematics experienced by grassroots dirt track race car drivers.
Methods: Four dirt track race car drivers (ages 16-19) were instrumented with custom mouthpiece sensors capable of accurately measuring head motion during racing. Sensors were deployed before races and recorded tri-axial linear acceleration and rotational velocity for approximately 10 min at 200 Hz.