Head Accelerations Experienced during Everyday Activities and While Riding Roller Coasters

Recently much attention has been paid to head accelerations experienced during roller coaster rides and their association with brain injuries (Smith and Meaney, 2002, Braksiek and Roberts, 2002). This paper provides a context for comparing head accelerations experienced on roller coasters to some activities of daily living (ADL) and other recreational activities. Historically, research dealing with head accelerations has come in two main areas. First, accelerations that are very short duration events occurring during direct or indirect head impacts. Second, longer duration accelerations that occur during events like flying an airplane. A third but much smaller set of data is available for events that fall between these two classic types of head acceleration. Simply reporting ”maximum g's” without a consideration of the duration, direction, or type of the acceleration does not provide an accurate description of the event, nor does it directly predict the likelihood of an injury. This paper presents results from a review of the literature and several studies conducted by the authors to compare the magnitudes and durations of head accelerations experienced during ADL and from riding a sample of roller coasters.