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 Researchers reviewed injuries reported by National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA) schools sponsoring women’s field hockey
teams and found most of these types of injuries involved contact
with a ball or stick. Concussions accounted for about 43 percent of
injuries.
With the ball and stick being as hard as they are, it is not
surprising that when lifted off of the playing surface, even when
legally done, this can cause significant injury said lead study
author Dr. Elizabeth Gardner, a sports medicine researcher at Yale
University School of Medicine.
To gather evidence for assessing possible protective measures, like
helmets or goggles, Gardner and colleagues reviewed NCAA data on
injuries for school years starting in 2004 to 2008. The data were
based on reports from about 9 percent of roughly 250 NCAA schools
with women’s field hockey teams.
The researchers measured injury rates against what’s known as
athletic exposures (AEs), which occur each time one athlete
participates in one practice or game that has the potential to
result in an injury.
Over the course of the study, there were 7,944 practices or games,
each involving between 5 and 35 athletes per session, for a combined
AE of 148,705.
There were 150 traumatic injuries during the study period, including
112 to the head or face, 15 to the nose, 13 to the mouth and 9 to
the eye.
That amounts to an overall injury rate of 0.94 per 1,000 AEs.
Almost half of the injuries resulted from contact with an elevated
ball, while about 22 percent were due to contact with a stick and 25
percent happened in a collision with another player.
While most injured players returned to the field during the current
season, 10 percent of injuries were severe enough to sideline
players for the rest of the season. Three players with season-ending
injuries had concussions, while five of these injuries involved the
eyes or cheeks.
Among the majority of players with concussions who returned to the
game during the current season, 77 percent were back in action
within 10 days of their injury, while the rest needed up to 20 days.
After concussions, facial contusions and lacerations were the most
common injuries, and these were most often caused by contact with an
elevated ball. About 6 percent of athletes with these facial
injuries missed at least 10 days of play before returning to the
field.
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One limitation of the study is its reliance on the small fraction of
NCAA schools reporting data on women’s field hockey injuries, which
might make injury rates in the study different from the actual
injury rates for all college players, the authors acknowledge in the
American Journal of Sports Medicine.
In addition, the NCAA only records injuries that resulted in lost
playing time, the researchers note.
While the study highlights the need to ensure that current playing
rules are enforced to minimize the risk of concussions and other
injuries, the findings aren’t enough to support changing rules or
modifying requirements for protective gear, Gardner said by email.
Overall, the available evidence suggests that the incidence of head
and face injuries is not alarmingly high and the majority of these
injuries are not severe, Dr. Swarup Mukherjee, a researcher at
Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said by email.
But there is still room for improvement, said Mukherjee, who wasn’t
involved in the study.
Field hockey involves far less protective gear than other similar
sports like ice hockey, where the required list of equipment
includes helmets, face masks, mouth guards, gloves and shin pads,
Mukherjee said. For field hockey, only a mouth guard is mandatory
and head wear is only permitted for medical reasons.
These are sensitive and vital body parts and an injury can lead to
long-term and even permanent damage, Mukherjee said. Protection is
of paramount importance.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1IJZOwi American Journal of Sports Medicine,
online June 19, 2015.
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