Wrist, Elbow Pads Protect In-Line Skaters

BOSTON (Reuter) - Wrist guards and elbow pads help keep in-line skaters out of the emergency room but it was unclear whether kneepads helped prevent fractures, a report said Wednesday.

An estimated 22.5 million Americans have tried in-line skating and as many as 99,500 people have wound up in emergency rooms, roughly half with some type of broken bone.

Dr. Richard Schieber and his colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta collected data from 91 hospital emergency departments for an eight-month period, then compared the injuries of skaters who did and did not use protective equipment.

They wrote in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine that the risk of a serious wrist injury was more than ten times higher among skaters who did not wear wrist guards. The likelihood of a serious elbow injury was 9.5 times higher among those who did not wear elbow pads.

Knee pads seemed to make a difference as well but it was not dramatic enough to be statistically significant. There was not enough information to assess the effectiveness of helmets.

The researchers found that safety gear was seldom used, at least among people who ended up coming to a hospital.