Fatalities from head and cervical spine injuries occurring in tackle football:​ 50 years' experience

Mueller, Frederick O.

Affiliations

¹Department of Physical Education, Exercise and Sport Science, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss the etiology of football head and cervical spine fatalities that have occurred in the United States since 1945. Historic information and a review of the related literature is presented to show the evolution of football and its association with fatalities to participants.

Fifty years of data collection, 1945 through 1994, will point out the incidence of football head and cervical spine fatalities. In addition to incidence of injury, the data also reveals the type of injury, activity at time of injury, level of play (i.e., college, high school), and game or practice injury.

On establishing the incidence and cause of head and cervical spine fatalities from 1945 through 1994, the data are divided into 10-year spans of time and concentrate on the variables that have either increased or decreased fatalities. The article concludes with a discussion of the major preventive measures that have been credited for reducing head and cervical spine fatalities, and makes recommendations for continued prevention.

Links

DOI: 10.1016/S0278-5919(05)70071-5

PubMed: 9475981

WoS: 000071687600017

Cited Works (1)

Year	Entry
1979	Torg JS, Truex R Jr, Quedenfeld TC, Burstein A, Spealman A, Nichols C III. The National Football Head and Neck injury Registry: report and conclusions 1978. JAMA. 1979;241(14):1477-1479.

Cited By (12)

Year	Entry
2003	King AI, Yang KH, Zhang L, Hardy W, Viano DC. Is head injury caused by linear or angular acceleration? In: Proceedings of the 2003 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. September 25, 2003; Lisbon, Portugal.1-12.
2014	Ouckama R, Pearsall DJ. Projectile impact testing of ice hockey helmets: headform kinematics and dynamic measurement of localized pressure distribution. In: Proceedings of the 2014 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 10-12, 2014; Berlin, Germany.62-71.
2006	Zou H, Schmiedeler JP. Prediction of diffuse axonal injury with a strain measure from an analytical model. In: Proceedings of the 2nd Ohio State University Injury Biomechanics Symposium. May 17-19, 2006; Columbus, OH.
2012	Viano DC, Halstead D. Change in size and impact performance of football helmets from the 1970s to 2010. Ann Biomed Eng. January 2012;40(1):175-184.
2002	Delaney JS, Lacroix VJ, Leclerc S, Johnston KM. Concussions among university football and soccer players. Clin J Sport Med. November 2002;2(6):331-338.
2010	Gwin JT, Chu JJ, Diamond SG, Halstead PD, Crisco JJ, Greenwald RM. An investigation of the NOCSAE linear impactor test method based on in vivo measures of head impact acceleration in American football. J Biomech Eng. January 2010;132(1):011006.
2003	Cantu RC, Mueller FO. Brain injury-related fatalities in American football, 1945–1999. Neurosurgery. April 2003;52(4):846-853.
2004	Hoshizaki TB, Brien SE. The science and design of head protection in sport. Neurosurgery. October 2004;55(4):956-967.
2020	Hanna B. Development of a Metamaterial for Use in American Football Head Protection [PhD thesis]. Cardiff University; September 2020.
2016	Virani S. The Effect of Shoulder Pad Design on Head Impact Severity During Shoulder Checks in Ice Hockey [Master's thesis]. Simon Fraser University; Spring, 2016.
2022	Wynn GF. Repeatability of a Novel Prototype Surrogate Neck Model Developed for Omni-Directional Head Impacts [Master's thesis]. Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta; 2022.
2001	Zhang L. Computational Biomechanics of Traumatic Brain Injury: An Investigation of Head Impact Response and American Football Head Injury [PhD thesis]. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University; May 2001.