Friday, July 1, 2011

Head Impacts in Women Collegiate Ice Hockey Players

Historically, women hockey players have experienced higher rates of concussion than men.  A recent study from the Bioengineering Laboratory at Brown University  published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise used hockey helmets instrumented with shock sensing devices (accelerometers) to compare the severity of impacts that men and women collegiate players were subjected to during actual games. The results showed that although women hockey players received approximately the same number of hits as men, the severity of the impacts were significantly lower in women.  This was true for both linear and rotational accelerations. Because of the previous findings of higher concussion rates in women hockey players, these results suggest that the threshold for brain injury may be lower in women compared to men. 
 
Read the abstract of the study here

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