BMJ  2003;327:1168 (15 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7424.1168

Letter

Cumulative effects of soccer heading are not fully known

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—McCrory says in his editorial that heading a soccer ball results in head accelerations of less than 10 g (or less than 1000 rad/s2), whereas the minimum values for the development of sports related concussions are 40-60 g (or 3500-5000 rad/s2),1 with a reference to an article published by our group.

To mix or equate linear acceleration measured in g (1 g = 9.8 m/s2) with angular acceleration measured in rad/s2 is not appropriate. Also, although several of our earlier studies indicated linear accelerations near 10 g during soccer heading, our most recent studies at higher speeds (12 m/s or 26 mph) have shown average linear accelerations of more than 20 g and average angular accelerations of 1500 rad/s2 for direct frontal impacts.2 Soccer ball speeds notably higher than 12 m/s (26 mph) are reached on the soccer field; speeds up to 54 m/s (80 . . . [Full text of this article]

Rosanne S Naunheim, associate professor

Division of Emergency Medicine, Box 8072, Washington University School of Medicine, 660 South Euclid, St Louis, MO 63110, USA Naunheir@msnotes.wustl.edu

John Standeven, engineer, human performance laboratory

Department of Neurosurgery, Box 8057, Washington University School of Medicine

Philip Bayly, professor of mechanical engineering

Box 1185, Washington University, 1 Brookings Drive, St Louis, MO 63130, USA


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Relevant Article

Brain injury and heading in soccer
Paul R McCrory
BMJ 2003 327: 351-352. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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