Free vibration response of the head and neck system under normal and mouthguard conditions

Sport-related head injury is considered an important public health problem due to its high number of incidences. Changes in equipment designs have been shown to reduce the incidence of brain injury in sports such as hockey, football, and boxing. One measure that is currently being advocated is to use mouthguards to further help decrease the rate of concussion in sports. There is now a fair body of knowledge indicating their success with respect to reduction of dental injuries. However, no human study appears to have investigated the ability of mouthguards to attenuate force directed upwards across the jaw to the head (an upper-cut blow). Thus the objectives of this study were to develop an experimental setup that would allow for the measurement of the head-and-neck system's free vibration, and to evaluate the in situ effects of different mouthguards on this system.