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Musculoskeletal and Sports Medicine

Assessing the Quantity and Quality of Collisions in Wheelchair Rugby

Thursday, October 23, 2025
12:45 PM - 2:15 PM MT
Location: Kiosk 7

    Primary Author(s)

  • Andrew Hua, MD, PhD

    Resident
    Medical College of Wisconsin Affiliated Hospitals PM&R Program
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin

    • Poster Presenter(s)

  • AS

    Austen Schweinert, Other

    Medical Student
    MCW
    Brookfield, Wisconsin

    • Co-Author(s)

  • ST

    Sergey Tarima, PhD

    Associate Professor
    University of Kentucky / College of Public Health / Department of Biostatistics
    Lexington, Kentucky

  • Christopher White, MD

    Associate Professor and Chair
    Medical College of Wisconsin Affiliated Hospitals PM&R Program
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Disclosure(s):
Andrew Hua, MD, PhD: No financial relationships to disclose
Austen Schweinert, Other: No financial relationships to disclose
Sergey Tarima, PhD: No financial relationships to disclose
Christopher White, MD: No financial relationships to disclose
Background and/or Objectives: The objective of this pilot study was to examine the feasibility of using a wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor to assess the quantity and quality of collisions in wheelchair rugby (WR).

Design: Observational study

Setting : WR practices and tournaments in the Midwest United States

Participants : Five adult male WR athletes (mean age 43.6±19.7 years) were enrolled. Four had spinal cord injuries (three with spinal instrumentation), and one had a history of concussion unrelated to WR. Four had over five years of WR experience; one had 2–3 years. All competed competitively nationally, including one international-level athlete. Mean WR classification was 1.6±0.8.

Interventions: After informed consent and a brief demographic/injury survey, participants wore a single forehead-mounted IMU during scrimmages or a match. The IMU recorded acceleration and orientation data at 200 Hz. Collision events were identified using both accelerometer and gyroscope data via rolling standard deviation and percentile-based threshold filters.

Main Outcome Measures: Number of collisions per minute played, mean collision force magnitude, mean collision rotational acceleration magnitude

Results: Data were gathered over a total of nine sessions with two participants participating in multiple sessions. When using accelerometer data to identify collisions, there were 0.987±0.099 collisions per minute of activity. The mean collision force magnitude was 3.572±0.535g. The mean maximum collision force was 7.099±2.068g with the greatest collision force of 9.657g. When using gyroscope data to identify collisions, there were 60.983 collisions per minute of activity. The mean collision rotational acceleration magnitude was 0.304±0.131krad/s^2. The mean maximum collision rotational acceleration magnitude was 3.630±3.398krad/s^2 with the greatest rotational acceleration of 9.302krad/s^2.

Conclusions: This study supports the feasibility of using IMUs to monitor collisions in WR, offering insights into both collision frequency and severity. Further research with larger, more diverse cohorts to account for the heterogeneity of WR athletes is warranted to establish normative data and identify thresholds linked to concussion risk.