An epidemiologic investigation of injuries affecting young competitive female gymnasts

A prospective study of injuries affecting 50 highly com petitive young female gymnasts was conducted over a period of 1 year. Many of the findings of this investi gation were consistent with previous studies and sug gest particular injury trends in women's gymnastics. These results included inj...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American journal of sports medicine 1989-11, Vol.17 (6), p.811-820
Main Authors: Caine, Dennis, Cochrane, Barbara, Caine, Caroline, Zemper, Eric
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Back Injuries
Case studies
Child
Children
Children's gymnastics
Extremities - injuries
Female
Gymnastics
Gymnastics - injuries
Gymnastics for children
Humans
Injuries
Pediatric injuries
Recurrence
Risk Factors
Somatotypes
Sports injuries
Sports medicine
Statistics
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Summary:A prospective study of injuries affecting 50 highly com petitive young female gymnasts was conducted over a period of 1 year. Many of the findings of this investi gation were consistent with previous studies and sug gest particular injury trends in women's gymnastics. These results included injury location, injury severity, nature of onset, event, and activity at the time of injury. Some of the descriptive results, however, provided information that was heretofore unreported or incon sistent with previous investigations. These findings in volved injury rate, reinjury rate, time loss, injury type, hours of practice, and incidence of physician-seen in juries. Some of these findings were disturbing and echo concerns registered in the professional literature. In particular, the reinjury rate is alarming and points to the need for complete rehabilitation before return to full participation. The results of the analytic component of the study alluded to the potential role of competitive level and maturation rate in the profile of the injury- prone gymnast. Specifically, rapid periods of growth and advanced levels of training and competition ap peared to be related to injury proneness. Pursuant to the descriptive and analytic results of the investigation, recommendations for injury prevention and continued research are made.
ISSN:0363-5465
1552-3365
DOI:10.1177/036354658901700616