Physics 101 and Classification of Injury

Trauma is the transfer of energy from an external moving object to tissues. Physical injuries may arise in the transference of kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is expressed as a mathematical equation, where kinetic energy is the product of half the mass and squared velocity. The nature of the kinetic energy and the vessel by which the kinetic energy is transferred can convey the nature of the mechanism of injury. The human body has a limited number of ways to respond to injury. Studying trauma, in particular, the biomechanics of trauma in humans comes from a range of study types including cadaveric and human skull studies, animal models, computational models and magnetic resonance imaging. There are inherent limitations to each study type and inherent ethical limitations in the study of living humans. For example, animal models may give some insight into traumatic biomechanics, but animal brain and skulls are vastly different compared with humans in anatomy and complexity.