EVIDENCE OF RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY FOR THE USE OF A HELMET IMPACT DROP SYSTEM

Abstract

Head and brain injuries pose a significant threat to the health and well being of athletes. Helmets used in contact sports have proven to be effective in managing linear accelerations applied to the brain. One form of evaluating helmet performance is through the simulation of head impacts acceleration measures using a free-fall drop system and head surrogates (i.e., headforms). The purpose of this study was to provide evidence of reliability and validity for the use of a new helmet drop system to measure linear acceleration for future helmet impact research. Concurrent-related evidence of validity was observed (lCC=0.844-0.952, pc less than 0.005) and the system was shown to be highly reliable (ICC=0.922, pc less than 0.005) in measuring linear accelerations applied to the head, suggesting it can be used to accurately and consistently measure linear acceleration in future research.