In many sports, such as hockey, football, soccer, boxing and martial arts, head injuries have forced athletes to put an early end to their careers. In many sports, head contact cannot be eliminated without dramatically changing the nature of the game. Other measures must be taken to reduce the risk of head injury, such as wearing helmets. While these measures have been quite successful in preventing the majority of head injuries, concussions still occur and still pose a serious problem of protecting the most complicated and precious part of our body: the brain.

In a two-year research program, Biokinetics has been successful in developing a new method to study and "measure" concussion in sports. This research was funded by the National Football League and NFL Charities and was conducted in cooperation with bioengineering specialists in several universities in the United States. This unique study uses the football field as a laboratory, but could be applied in other sports as well. Multiple video recordings of head collisions of both concussed and non-concussed professional football players were analyzed to determine the details of the motion and contact. Twelve incidents have been studied involving 24 professional football players, of whom 10 were concussed. These head impacts are then replicated in the test lab using instrumented, helmeted crash test dummies and impact forces to each head are measured. The outcome is presented in the form of an index as a measure of the impact severity.

It is the combination of biomechanics and medical sciences that leads to a better understanding of concussion and improved protection of the brain. Biokinetics is confident that with the new knowledge, improved management of and protection against concussions will emerge and find their way into many different sports. Recently Biokinetics was awarded an additional contract from the National Football League to continue this research for another two years.