Head injuries, knee injuries

Researchers from Croatia, Canada and the Netherlands have warned of an increased incidence of skating injuries, particularly head injuries, in synchronised skating.

They believe this may be partly due to the growing physical and technical demands imposed on skaters participating in an ever-more competitive environment.

Since synchronised skating is a relatively new competitive sport, with little data about injuries, the purpose of this study was to investigate the frequency and pattern of acute and overuse injuries in participants.

A questionnaire about injuries was given to 23 teams participating in the World Synchronized Skating Championships 2004, held in Zagreb, and completed by all 514 women and 14 men involved (this being an overwhelmingly female sport).

Analysis revealed that 42.4% of female and 42.9% of male skaters had suffered from a total of 398 injuries (including 14 acute injuries) during their careers.
Since the overall numbers of men were so small, interpretation of their results is difficult. But of the women:

• nearly one in five acute injuries were head injuries;
• about a third were upper extremity injuries;
• four out of 10 were lower extremity injuries.

When the researchers looked at when these injuries had occurred, they found that acute injuries had become much more common in the four years leading up to the championships. This was particularly true of head injuries, which had risen from 12 (3%) more than four years ago to 67 (16.8%) less than four years ago.

‘This suggests,’ comment the researchers, ‘that due to increasing demands put on synchronized skaters in the last four skating seasons, the incidence of head injuries is increasing. However, it cannot be ruled out that the recall of recent injuries is more accurate than those suffered some years ago.’

Int J Sports Med 2006; 27:493-499