Children risk sports injuries at certain ages
BOYS AGED 14 and girls aged 12 were most at risk of sustaining a sports-related injury that required a visit to accident and emergency departments, a new study has found.
Researchers studying admissions found almost half of sportsrelated emergency department attendances were patients aged under 19. For 14-year-old boys, the main sports involved in injuries were football, rugby union and rugby league while for girls aged 12 it was trampoline, netball and horse riding.
Newcastle University and the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust analysed attendances at two Oxfordshire hospitals over two years. Of the 63,877 attendances recorded, 11,676 were sport-related, with 5,533 in under-19s,
Rugby union was the sport most associated with head injury and concussion in boys and, for girls, head injuries were most common during horse riding.
Graham Kirkwood, senior research associate at Newcastle University, said: “Children need to be physically active but making organised sports as safe as possible needs to be part of any effective child obesity strategy.”
Researchers added schools and local authorities should look more closely at injury prevention during the early years of secondary school.