Prognosticative Extensions and Enhancements to Existing Practices: a Biomechanical PEEEP Show into the Future

With the rapidly expanding capabilities and sophistication of experimental and analytical techniques that can be applied toward biomechanical endeavors, it would appear to be a useful exercise to review current practice and discuss what might be the form and function of future research that could make substantial improvements in the ability to detect and evaluate the potential for automotive impact trauma. To accomplish this, an exercise, dubbed Prognosticative Extensions and Enhancements to Existing Practices: a Biomechanical PEEEP Show into the Future, will be pursued and presented. It presents the author's impressions of what are the prevalent injury mechanisms active in each major body region, his technical evaluation of the efficacy of the currently accepted injury criteria being applied to detect and evaluate the consequences of those injury mechanisms, and presents his vision of the form and function of future biomechanical capabilities that could, using both enhanced analytical and experimental research techniques, have the potential for greatly improving both our understanding of impact injuries and our ability to prevent them.