1st U.S. Study: Gymnastics Lands Thousands In E-R

Main Category: Sports Medicine / Fitness
Article Date: 07 Apr 2008 - 13:00 PDT

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It's one of the biggest draws during the Summer Olympics. More than 600,000 American children take part in gymnastics every year*, and the sport is especially popular among girls. It might surprise you to know that there have been no national studies about injury rates in gymnastics - until now. But the results from this study have some pediatric experts calling for change.

Having done gymnastics for 10 years, Amanda Osswald understands the importance of doing it properly - with the right equipment and a good coach.

"If you're going to do something that you don't know how to do and you haven't had really good training for, there's a really big chance you can get hurt doing it. So you might want to stick to doing it in a place where you have coaches that are watching you," says Amanda.

That's good advice that thousands of kids and their parents simply don't follow. The first national study of gymnastics injuries is out and it shows some surprising results.

"We don't typically think of gymnastics as a dangerous sport. In fact, many parents consider it an activity, but it has the same clinical incidence of catastrophic injuries as ice hockey," says Lara McKenzie, PhD at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

McKenzie conducted the study and looked at injury rates over a 16-year period. She found nearly 27,000 gymnasts* end up in the hospital every year. Most of those injuries happened at schools or rec centers* where trained coaches and spotters are less likely to be. That's something McKenzie says needs to be changed.

"We may be able to prevent and reduce the number of gymnastics-related injuries if we were to establish a uniform set of rules and regulations for gymnasts, trainers and coaches," says McKenzie.

Right now no such national guidelines exist, so if children and parents aren't taking precautions, they might be taking risks that could land them in the emergency department.

The study looked at gymnasts between 6-17 years old. Most of the injuries were sprains and strains to the upper body and arms.* The results of the study are published in the April journal Pediatrics.

*Gymnastics-related Injuries to Children Treated in Emergency Departments in the United States, 1990-2005, the Journal of Pediatrics, Volume 121, Number 4, April 2008; http://www.pediatrics.org

Ohio State University