| dc.description.abstract | The sport of boxing historically symbolises a high-risk injury sport due the number of
concussions occurring on athletes. Indeed, boxing has shown to have the highest rate of
concussions of any individual male sport. Research studies, however, indicate that boxing
headgears are generally effective in minimizing concussion risk for training and
competitions. Unfortunately, concussions continue to occur even when wearing a protective
headguard. As a result, athletes do not always use boxing headguards during training,
matches and competitions at the professional level. Based on these concerns, this study
examined the capacity of three different types of boxing headguard models to mitigate the
risk of concussions by using static and dynamic headguard testing techniques. The researcher
included the use of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material inserts in one of the
headguard models to observe changes in headguard performance to mitigate concussion risk.
The researcher performed static quasi-compression tests to observe changes to the material
properties of the headguards, specifically testing percent reduction in the energy absorption,
force and deformation of the headguard material. The researcher also performed dynamic
tests by mounting the headguard on a surrogate headform and imparting linear and shear
impacts to the headform model at different velocities across different headgear locations. The
researcher used the dynamic measures of linear and angular accelerations to compute the risk
of head injury across the headgear locations. A set of analyses were conducted to examine the
capacity of the headguards with and without the TPU material to limit these acceleration
measures, and subsequently mitigate the risk of concussion. The results of this study revealed
that the TPU material, when implemented into the headguard, had significant effects in
mitigating linear accelerations and risk of head injury. This study also found significant
interactions between headguard types and impact locations on measures of angular
accelerations and risk of head injury, which included measures of Angular Gadd Severity
Index and GAMBIT (Generalized Acceleration Model for Brain Injury Threshold) – an index
that the combines linear and rotational accelerations. This study is the first to implement TPU
material into a boxing headguard and provides strong evidence to mitigate concussion risk in
the sport of boxing based on measures of linear and rotational accelerations. In addition, it
offers another avenue for manufacturers to improve the capacity of current boxing headgear
technologies to better support athletes’ safety while practicing in the sport. | en_US |
