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A Review of the Incidence of Head Injuries in Football, Baseball, Ice Hockey, and Cycling

Received: 24 November 2018     Accepted: 14 December 2018     Published: 19 January 2019
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Abstract

Head injuries in sports have merited greater attention from professionals, the media, and the general public in recent years. The purpose of this research was to conduct a review of articles that focus on the incidence of head injuries in football, baseball, ice hockey, and cycling. Twenty three studies were identified for inclusion because they contained quantitative data on the number or percentage of head injuries in those four sports. A table was created comparing the data by: sport, research design, level of play, and number of head injuries. Analysis of the data showed that the most studied sport was ice hockey, the most studied level of play was the professional level, and the most used study designs were case studies and emergency department surveillance. Some studies included implementation of prevention strategies to decrease the incidence of head injuries. The most common prevention strategies were rule changes and better equipment. Future studies will help determine the most successful prevention strategies that can be implemented in each sport to further reduce the incidence of head injury in sports.

Published in American Journal of Sports Science (Volume 7, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.ajss.20190701.11
Page(s) 1-6
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2019. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Head Injury, Concussion, Prevention, Football, Baseball, Ice Hockey, Cycling

References
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Joyce A. Shaw, Brayden Nielsen. (2019). A Review of the Incidence of Head Injuries in Football, Baseball, Ice Hockey, and Cycling. American Journal of Sports Science, 7(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajss.20190701.11

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    ACS Style

    Joyce A. Shaw; Brayden Nielsen. A Review of the Incidence of Head Injuries in Football, Baseball, Ice Hockey, and Cycling. Am. J. Sports Sci. 2019, 7(1), 1-6. doi: 10.11648/j.ajss.20190701.11

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    AMA Style

    Joyce A. Shaw, Brayden Nielsen. A Review of the Incidence of Head Injuries in Football, Baseball, Ice Hockey, and Cycling. Am J Sports Sci. 2019;7(1):1-6. doi: 10.11648/j.ajss.20190701.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ajss.20190701.11,
      author = {Joyce A. Shaw and Brayden Nielsen},
      title = {A Review of the Incidence of Head Injuries in Football, Baseball, Ice Hockey, and Cycling},
      journal = {American Journal of Sports Science},
      volume = {7},
      number = {1},
      pages = {1-6},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ajss.20190701.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajss.20190701.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajss.20190701.11},
      abstract = {Head injuries in sports have merited greater attention from professionals, the media, and the general public in recent years. The purpose of this research was to conduct a review of articles that focus on the incidence of head injuries in football, baseball, ice hockey, and cycling. Twenty three studies were identified for inclusion because they contained quantitative data on the number or percentage of head injuries in those four sports. A table was created comparing the data by: sport, research design, level of play, and number of head injuries. Analysis of the data showed that the most studied sport was ice hockey, the most studied level of play was the professional level, and the most used study designs were case studies and emergency department surveillance. Some studies included implementation of prevention strategies to decrease the incidence of head injuries. The most common prevention strategies were rule changes and better equipment. Future studies will help determine the most successful prevention strategies that can be implemented in each sport to further reduce the incidence of head injury in sports.},
     year = {2019}
    }
    

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Author Information
  • Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Endicott College, Beverly, US

  • Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Endicott College, Beverly, US

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