Using Forefoot Acceleration to Predict Forefoot Trauma in Frontal Crashes

A common injury type among foot and ankle injury is the Lisfranc trauma, or injury to the forefoot. The Lisfranc injury indicates abnormal alignment of the tarsal-metatarsal joints with the loss of their normal spatial relationships. In 2003, Smith completed a laboratory study of this injury mechanism at Wayne State University [1, 2]. He found Lisfranc trauma was correlated with impact force to the forefoot. He proposed a probability of injury function that is based on the applied force to the forefoot.

This study examined the instrumentation in the foot of the dummies in the USA New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS) frontal crashes. Nineteen different passenger vehicles representing four different vehicle classes were selected based mostly on a large presence in the USA vehicle fleet. Both NCAP and IIHS crashed these nineteen makes and models. The NCAP dummies were instrumented with an accelerometer at the forefoot that captured the acceleration in the z-direction. The IIHS dummies had a bi-axial accelerometer at the ankle, but not at the forefoot.

For the years 1995 - 2005, the real world crash data in the National Automotive Sampling System/ Crashworthiness Data System (NASS/CDS) were examined. The number of female drivers who sustained AIS 2+ level for foot and ankle injuries is higher than the number of male drivers.