The National Football Head and Neck Injury Registry: Report and Conclusions 1978

• Published in: JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 241; no. 14; pp. 1477 - 1479
• Main Authors: Torg, Joseph S, Truex, Raymond, Quedenfeld, Theodore C, Burstein, Albert, Spealman, Alan, Nichols, Claude
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Medical Association 06-04-1979
• Subjects: Athletic Injuries - complications; Athletic Injuries - epidemiology; Athletic Injuries - prevention & control; Craniocerebral Trauma - epidemiology; Football; Humans; Neck Injuries; Protective Devices - standards; Quadriplegia - etiology; Registries; Risk; Spinal Injuries - epidemiology; United States; United States
• ISSN: 0098-7484; 1538-3598
• DOI: 10.1001/jama.1979.03290400037018

The National Football Head and Neck Injury Registry has documented 1,129 injuries since 1971 that involved hospitalization for more than 72 hours, surgical intervention, fracture-dislocation, permanent paralysis, or death. Of this group of injuries, 550 were fracture-dislocations of the cervical spine, of which 176 were associated with permanent quadriplegia. It appears that during the last two decades, there has been a decrease in the incidence of direct fatalities, head injuries associated with intracranial hemorrhage, and injuries associated with death. Conversely, cervical spine injuries with fracture-dislocation and with permanent quadriplegia have increased. We believe that these observations are the result of the development of a protective helmet-face mask system that has effectively protected the head, and by so doing has allowed it to be used as a battering ram in tackling and blocking techniques, thus placing the cervical spine at risk of injury.(JAMA 241:1477-1479, 1979)