Rise in Skateboard Parks Mirrors Rise in Injuries - Brief Article

0 Comments | Family Practice News, June 1, 2001 | by Bruce Jancin

SAN ANTONIO -- An ongoing national boom in construction of public skateboarding parks foretells a continued rise in skateboarding-related injuries, Dr. Federico Vaca predicted at a national sports medicine meeting.

Skateboarding parks are sprouting up all over the country. In 1995 the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended development of such parks as a safer, more controlled alternative to skateboarding on streets and sidewalks.

Local community leaders clearly agreed: There are now roughly 1,500 skate parks nationwide and another 300 under construction, said Dr. Vaca, an emergency department physician at the University of California, Irvine, Medical Center, Orange.

But there are no national safety standards for such parks. And Dr. Vaca has found that even in the relatively controlled setting of a public skate park where helmets are mandatory, auto traffic poses no hazard, and all but professionals must wear elbow and knee pads, injuries entailing substantial time lost from school and work are commonplace.

He had a unique opportunity to study such injuries because a public skate park is located directly across the street from the UCI Medical Center. During a 1-year study period, 95 skateboarders presented to the emergency department with injuries sustained while skateboarding in the neighboring park, he reported at the joint annual meeting of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine and the American Osteopathic Academy of Sports Medicine.

The mean hospital charges for the emergency department encounters were $2,400. There were 57 fractures, 6 dislocations, 9 head injuries, 15 sprains or contusions, 2 dental fractures, 7 lacerations, and 1 in traabdominal injury. The mean age of the injured skateboarders was surprisingly high at 20 years.

Nine skateboarders were admitted to the hospital from the emergency department, said Dr. Vaca, who is also a team physician for the U.S. Field Hockey Association.

Telephone follow-up showed that during the first week alone, patients collectively lost 48 days from school and 127 days from work, while their parents lost 35 workdays in providing care and shuttling them to 63 visits to non-emergency department specialists. Between the 1- and 3-month follow-ups, patients lost a further 21 days from school and 190 days from work due to their injuries, and their parents missed 14 workdays. There were 93 specialist visits during this period.

At 1 month, about 7% of patients were rated as having a serious disability; 40%, a moderate disability; 24%, a minor one; and 30%, no disability. But 95% of patients were rated disability free by 6 months, Dr. Vaca said.

Data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System show that skateboarding-related visits to emergency departments climbed from 42,000 in 1997 to more than 85,000 last year.