New hockey helmet safety measure urged by Virginia Tech study

Hockey helmets alone won’t protect against concussions, but there’s room to improve their design to reduce the risk of head injuries, a new lab rating suggests.

When researchers at Virginia Tech’s biomedical engineering and mechanics department bought and tested 32 helmets under various impacts, the top helmet earned three out of five stars.

The Hockey STAR (Summation of Tests for the Analysis of Risks) formula was designed to evaluate helmets based on the rotational acceleration that occurs when the head turns on impact, as well as linear acceleration, or moving in the direction of the impact. Concussion is more related to rotational acceleration, neurosurgeons say.

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There is no concussion-proof helmet, the researchers stressed. The aim is to have helmet manufacturers lower head acceleration to lower the risk, said study author Stefan Duma, head of Virginia Tech's Department of Biomedical Engineering.

The Exemplar helmets would achieve a five-star rating, Duma said.

"They are what we took from the football world, where they are a little bigger, they have a larger offset, a different style of padding," he said. "We're going to be interested to see the consumer acceptance of that, but it is very much possible."

Cost had no impact on a helmet’s safety rating.

The best way to consider the differences in helmets is by acceleration, Duma said.

For example, helmets A and B aren’t recommended, because for top location of the helmet at the worst 90 degree impact , A and B had peak accelerations of 263 grams and 163 grams whereas helmet C was 100 grams. "You are dramatically reducing head accelerations" he added in an email.

Discussing the report in an interview with CBC News, sports medicine physician Dr. Paul Echlin, of Burlington, Ont., stressed the value of rule changes such as enforcing non-contact.

Hockey Canada spokesman Francis Dupont said it will continue to monitor new research and rely on the expertise of those involved with helmet quality control and the companies responsible for manufacturing helmets.