COLUMBUS, Ohio (United Press International) — More than 425,000 children ages 6 to 17 landed in U.S. hospital emergency rooms from 1990 to 2005 for treatment of gymnastic injuries, U.S. researchers said.
Researchers at Ohio State University and the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, in Columbus, did a retrospective analysis using data for children ages 6 to 17 from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission from 1990 to 2005.
The study, published last week in the journal Pediatrics, found that an estimated 425,900 children ages in that age group were treated in hospital emergency departments for gymnastics-related injuries during that time. The number of injuries averaged 26,600 annually.
Injuries sustained per 1,000 participants per year were greater for those ages 12 to 17 years — 7.4 — than for those ages 6 to 11 years — 3.6.
Gymnastics has one of the highest injury rates of all girls’ sports, the researchers said. They suggested setting up a national database for gymnastics-related injuries, including exposure data for direct calculation of injury rates, which would permit better identification and monitoring of risk factors for such injuries.
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