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 Football players have the highest risk by far, but lacrosse, field
and ice hockey, wrestling, softball and basketball also carry higher
odds of these injuries, which can require costly surgery and keep
kids out of the game for weeks, the authors say.
“Stick and ball or puck sports and full contact sports have high
rates of hand/wrist injuries relative to other sports, which is
indicative of a need for sport-specific prevention efforts,” Dr.
Bernadette Johnson of Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora and her
colleagues write online November 21 in Pediatrics.
While playing sports has clear health benefits for children and
teens, young athletes do run the risk of injury, the study team
notes. Hand and wrist injuries represent 17% of pediatric and
adolescent sports injuries, they add, and can affect students’
ability to complete their school work in addition to keeping them
off the field.
The researchers looked at 11 academic years’ worth of data from a
large sample of high schools in the National High School
Sports-Related Injury Surveillance Study, starting in 2005-2006
through 2015-2016.
Over the course of 40,195,806 athlete exposures (AEs) during games
or practices, there were 6,723 hand/wrist injuries, for an overall
rate of 1.7 injuries per 10,000 AEs. About half of the injuries
occurred during competition and half during practice, but because
players spend more time practicing than competing, injury rates were
actually three times higher during games.
During the study period, 8.5% of all reported injuries involved the
hand and/or the wrist. The hand/wrist injury rate was highest in
football, at 4.3 per 10,000 AEs. The injury rates ranged from 1.7 to
1.9 per 10,000 AEs for boys’ lacrosse, softball, wrestling, girls’
field hockey, boys’ ice hockey and girls’ basketball.
When boys and girls played the same sport or similar ones, girls’
hand and wrist injury rates were usually higher, although injury
rates for girls’ lacrosse were lower than for boys’ lacrosse.
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Forty-five percent of the injuries were fractures, while 11.6% were
bruises and 9.0% were ligament sprains. Most were due to contact
with another player (40.9%), equipment (30.3%) or playing surface
(25.1%).
Athletes returned to play within a week in 45.7 cases, while 12.4%
were out of play for three weeks or more. Medical disqualification,
for the season or for an athlete’s career, occurred with 5.6% of
injuries.
More than 80% of injuries required imaging tests and nearly 8%
required surgery, the study found.
While the rate of hand and wrist injuries overall and during
practice declined between the 2005-2006 and 2015-2016 academic
years, the study team notes that the rate of such injuries during
competition hasn’t changed.
“These findings reveal the need for a renewed focus on identifying
effective injury prevention programs,” they write. Some are
relatively easy fixes, they suggest, include requiring protective
gloves for girls’ field hockey and lacrosse.
“Given the prevalence of hand/wrist injuries in this population, as
well as the potential negative effects of these injuries, including
time loss from play, financial costs, and academic challenges, more
concerted efforts should be made to prevent sports-related
hand/wrist injuries,” they write.
Dr. Johnson was not available for an interview by press time.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2za1vBY
Pediatrics 2017.
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