An epidemiology study into freestyle ski injury

Introduction

Freestyle ski is an important event in Winter Olympics. China has made a big progress on freestyle ski. However, one thing that can’t be neglected is that freestyle ski injury rate is getting higher, which exerts negative influence on normal training. A lot of athletes are eliminated due to injury. Therefore, more studies are needed to get an epidemic investigation on freestyle ski and make a deeper understanding on its cause, mechanism and prevention to decrease the injury cases.

Methods

Participants were 34 freestyle ski athletes (15men, 19 women), with a mean age of 17.02 from 16 to 29. They began to be involved in freestyle ski in a mean age of 6.44 and took part in competitive training with a mean time of 5.89. All of them entered into sports team with a mean time of 9.51. A questionnaire applying with a common method of review line in epidemiology was made to analyze basic information on injury (eg. when, where and why the injury happened, the treatment and its effect on the exercise ability). We assessed the injury with standard clinic check-up. In addition, bone and joint injury were diagnosed by x-ray. All the cases from November 1997 to November 2001 were investigated.

Results

58.82% athletes in freestyle ski suffered from injury (46.67% male and 68.42% female). The first five common injuries were muscular membrane inflammation, waist sacrum inflammation (12.82%), cerebral concussion and ligament injury in medial knee joint (8.97%), lumbar vertebral convex (7.69%), meniscus injury (6.41%) etc. Trunk is the most frequent injury area (51.28%), lower limbs ranked second (35.9%) and upper limbs ranked third (12.82 %). 16-18 years old athletes injured easily and most of them injured in the field. The causes of the injury were the improper training focused on freestyle ski, deficient physical exercise and improper field. The most common type of injury was acute injury (52.94%), chronic injury ranked second (32.35%), and the third one was the injury that was changing from acute to chronic (14.71%).

Conclusions

These data showed that injury happened frequently in freestyle ski and we have to pay attention to such kind of phenomenon. Therefore, we should adopt some measures to prevent it such as enhancing medical supervision, improve field, cultivate mental ability and strengthen protection.

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