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. 2021 Sep 9;21(18):6028.
doi: 10.3390/s21186028.

Laboratory Validation of Instrumented Mouthguard for Use in Sport

Danyon Stitt  1 , Nick Draper  2 , Keith Alexander  1 , Natalia Kabaliuk  1
Affiliations

Laboratory Validation of Instrumented Mouthguard for Use in Sport

Danyon Stitt et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Concussion is an inherent risk of participating in contact, combat, or collision sports, within which head impacts are numerous. Kinematic parameters such as peak linear and rotational acceleration represent primary measures of concussive head impacts. The ability to accurately measure and categorise such impact parameters in real time is important in health and sports performance contexts. The purpose of this study was to assess the accuracy of the latest HitIQ Nexus A9 instrumented mouthguard (HitIQ Pty. Ltd. Melbourne Australia) against reference sensors in an aluminium headform. The headform underwent drop testing at various impact intensities across the NOCSAE-defined impact locations, comparing the peak linear and rotational acceleration (PLA and PRA) as well as the shapes of the acceleration time-series traces for each impact. Mouthguard PLA and PRA measurements strongly correlated with (R2 = 0.996 and 0.994 respectively), and strongly agreed with (LCCC = 0.997) the reference sensors. The root mean square error between the measurement devices was 1 ± 0.6g for linear acceleration and 47.4 ± 35 rad/s2 for rotational acceleration. A Bland-Altman analysis found a systematic bias of 1% for PRA, with no significant bias for PLA. The instrumented mouthguard displayed high accuracy when measuring head impact kinematics in a laboratory setting.

Keywords: accelerations; concussion; head impacts; instrumented mouthguard; sports.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Impact locations, from top left to bottom right: front/forehead, front boss, side, rear, and rear boss. The mouthguard and dentition are both shown rigidly fixed to the upper jaw of the ATD headform.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Time periods considered for the RMS calculations, with Impact (A,C) defining a threshold of 20% of the peak on either side of the peak, and Full (B,D) defining the same time duration for both based on linear and rotational 20% thresholds.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Correlation (A,C) and Bland–Altman (B,D) plots for PLA and PRA.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Normalised RMS values calculated over two different time periods for both linear and rotational accelerations. (A,B) Normalised impact RMS, (C,D) Normalised full RMS. The blue line shows the respective means. The colors show the impact location for each of the impacts.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Each impact in the 20 g, 15 ms front boss scenario with the outlier marked.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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