Basketball

American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Basketball. Available at http://www.aaos.org/wordhtml/pat_educ/basketba.htm. Accessed July 7, 1999.

American Academy of Pediatrics. Sports Medicine: Health care for young athletes. Elk Grove Village, IL: The Academy, 1991:152,169.

Caine D, Caine C, Lindner K, editors. Epidemiology of Sports Injuries. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1996:86-97.

Who is affected?

Basketball is a popular sport, especially among children and young adults. But the sport carries a risk for injury, whether played in an organized league or with friends on a local park court. More than 200,000 young people under age 15 are treated in hospital emergency departments each year for basketball-related injuries. This makes basketball the fourth leading cause of injury in both unorganized settings and organized community team sports.

Injuries to basketball players are usually minor, mostly sprains and strains. The ankle and knee are the most common sites of injury, followed by the lower back, hand, and wrist. Eye injuries also occur frequently, as a result of being hit with fingers or elbows.

At the high school and recreational levels, injuries occur more frequently during practice; college players are injured more often during games. Girls and women appear to have a higher rate of injury than boys and men. And many of the injuries female players sustain are more serious than those of their male counterparts (e.g., knee injuries).

Pediatr Emerg Care 2000 Dec;16(6):462-8

Sports-Specific Concerns in the Young Athlete: Basketball

Cohen AR, Metzl JD.

Department of Pediatrics, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA.

Basketball is played by millions of athletes throughout the world and is the most popular team sport in American high schools. Basketball is the leading cause of sports-related injury in the United States. Acute basketball injuries most often involve the extremities, especially the hands, wrists, ankles, and knees. This article reviews the history, epidemiology, and common injury patterns that occur in this sport. We include several case reports to emphasize diagnostic dilemmas frequently encountered by emergency physicians.

Am J Sports Med 2000 May-Jun;28(3):385-91

 

Sex-Related Injury Patterns Among Selected High School Sports
Powell JW, Barber-Foss KD.
Med Sports Systems, Iowa City, Iowa, USA.

This cohort observational study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that the incidence of injuries for girls participating in high school sports is greater than that for boys. From 1995 through 1997, players were included in our study if they were listed on the school's varsity team roster for boys' or girls' basketball, boys' or girls' soccer, boys' baseball, or girls' softball. Injuries and opportunities for injury were recorded daily. Certified athletic trainers reported injury and exposure data. Based on 39,032 player-seasons and 8988 reported injuries, the injury rates per 100 players for softball (16.7) and for girls' soccer (26.7) were higher than for baseball (13.2) and boys' soccer (23.4). The knee injury rates per 100 players for girls' basketball (4.5) and girls' soccer (5.2) were higher than for their male counterparts. Major injuries occurred more often in girls' basketball (12.4%) and soccer (12.1%) than in boys' basketball (9.9%) and soccer (10.4%). Baseball players (12.5%) had more major injuries than softball players (7.8%). There was a higher number of surgeries, particularly knee and anterior cruciate ligament surgeries, for female basketball and soccer players than for boys or girls in other sports.

Percept Mot Skills 2000 Feb;90(1):319-25

Injuries Due to School Sports Accidents in 4 to 13-yr.-old Children

Kingma J, Ten Duis HJ.

Department of Surgery, University Hospital Groningen, The Netherlands.

505 kindergarten and primary school children from 4 to 13 years of age were treated for school sports injuries during the period 1990-1997. The incidence of injuries increased statistically significantly from .5 per 1,000 children 4- to 5-yr.-old to 4.8 injured children per 1,000 in 12- to 13-yr.-old. 59% of the injuries involved upper extremities; 35% of these were in the wrist region. 33.5% of the injuries were of the lower extremities, with 50% being of the feet and 36.4% of the ankle. Accidental falls were the main situation (53%) in which school sport accidents occurred. Nearly 65% of these accidental falls occurred at the ground level; the remaining accidents (35%) occurred when the child was working on an apparatus, e.g., parallel bars, balancing beam, side horse. The 4- to 5-yr.-old children were the most vulnerable to accidental fall (67%). A statistically significant increase in injuries in ball sports was observed from 4- to 5-yr.-olds (0%) to the 12- to 13-yr.-olds (28%).

Am J Sports Med 1999 May-Jun;27(3):294-9

The incidence of injury in Texas high school basketball.

A prospective study among male and female athletes.

Messina DF, Farney WC, DeLee JC.

Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, USA.

Recent publications have reported differences in the incidence, rate, risk, and type of sports injury among men and women. We undertook a prospective study to determine the incidence of injury among high school basketball players and to examine the differences in injury type, incidence, rate, and risk between male and female athletes. During a single basketball season, an injury survey of girls' varsity teams at 100 class 4A and 5A high schools in Texas was conducted. These data were previously reported. We surveyed the same 100 high schools during a subsequent season to gather injury data from the boys' varsity teams. The athletic trainer collected data on each reportable injury and reported the data weekly to the University Interscholastic League. A reportable injury was defined as one that occurred during a practice or a game, resulted in missed practice or game time, required physician consultation, or involved the head or the face. The boys' and girls' data were compared and statistically analyzed. The rate of injury was 0.56 among the boys and 0.49 among the girls. The risk of injury per hour of exposure was not significantly different between the two groups. In both groups, the most common injuries were sprains, and the most commonly injured area was the ankle, followed by the knee. Female athletes had a significantly higher rate of knee injuries including a 3.79 times greater risk of anterior cruciate ligament injuries. For both sexes, the risk of injury during a game was significantly higher than during practice.