Abstract
Recent reports have demonstrated that there is a serious risk of head impact and injury in water polo. The use of protective headgear in contact sports is a commonly accepted strategy for reducing the risk of head injury, but there are few available protective headgears for use in water polo. Many of those that are available are banned by the sport's governing bodies due to a lack of published data supporting the effectiveness of those headgears in reducing head impact kinematics. To address this gap in knowledge, we launched a water polo ball at the forehead of an anthropomorphic testing device fitted with either a standard water polo headgear or one of two protective headgears. We selected a range of launch speeds representative of those observed across various athlete ages. Mixed-model ANOVAs revealed that, relative to standard headgear, protective headgears reduced peak linear acceleration (by 10.8–21.6%; p < 0.001), and peak rotational acceleration (by 24.5–48.5%; p < 0.001) induced by the simulated ball-to-forehead impacts. We discuss the possibility of using protective headgears in water polo to attenuate head impact kinematics.
Highlights
1.6–3.8 million sports-related concussions occur in the United States annually (Langlois et al, 2006)
We hypothesize that protective water polo headgears will significantly reduce head impact kinematics relative to standard water polo headgear
Substantial research efforts have been expended to investigate the protective ability of various padded sports headgears, and the results of these studies have shown that certain padded headgears are capable of attenuating head impacts (Broglio et al, 2003; Naunheim et al, 2003a; McIntosh and Patton, 2015)
Summary
1.6–3.8 million sports-related concussions occur in the United States annually (Langlois et al, 2006). The safety of athletes in some sports may be compromised by a lack of commercially available protective headgears or rules that restrict the use of protective headgears. Both of these factors contribute to the risks associated with water polo, a contact sport that presents a unique risk for head injury compared to land-based sports. Water polo has been found to carry a significant risk of head and face injury (Mountjoy et al, 2010), and a large epidemiological study found that 36% of surveyed USA Water Polo members reported sustaining at least one concussion
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