ACCELERATION PERTURBATIONS OF DAILY LIVING - A COMPARISON TO WHIPLASH

Study Design. This study measured repeated human head accelerations (g ) during daily activities. Objectives. Perturbations of daily living w ere compared to similar data from low velocity rear-end motor vehicle accidents. Summary of Background Data. Past assumptions suggest that m otor vehicle accident severity does not correlate with the degree of s ustained injury. Early engineering studies indicated that occupant dis turbance in a low velocity motor vehicle accident is minor. Methods. E ight volunteers were perturbed with 13 daily activities. Helmets on th e heads of volunteers were instrumented with tri-planar accelerometers with output sampling of 500 Hz, sensitivity of 0.02 g, and a range of +/- 20 g. Results. There was wide inter-subject response for various perturbations. Plopping backward into a chair caused maximum peak acce leration horizontally at 5.6 g and vertically at 8.5 g, with force vec tor of 10.1 g at 54.9-degrees. Mean impulse duration was 0.19 sec. The re was no hint of injury in any subject. Conclusions. Perturbations of daily living compared similarly to the jostling expected in low veloc ity ''whip-lash''-type motor vehicle accidents.