Injury Biomechanics: Evaluating the Evidence to Determine Causation

Biomechanical engineering is a field that encompasses a wide variety of applications including the development and evaluation of medical devices, research regarding sports and sporting equipment, and investigations of how individuals are injured and how those injuries could be prevented. Understanding human tolerance, injury mechanisms, and the facts regarding a given scenario allows the biomechanical engineer to use these data to determine how an individual was injured. As the field of biomechanics is becoming more broadly understood, the biomechanical engineer is being called upon more frequently to contribute to forensic analyses. According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of forensic is as follows: “relating to or dealing with the application of scientific knowledge to legal problems.” For a biomechanical engineer, an increasingly reasonable option is to pursue a career in forensic analysis, where his/her knowledge and skills are employed to help attorneys, judges, juries, and other participants in legal proceedings understand technical concepts key to understanding the case at hand.