Fewer high school field hockey players get head and
face injuries when they're required to don protective eyewear, according to a
new comparison of states with and without those policies in effect.
Researchers were looking into worries that the
equipment, while preventing eye injuries, might encourage players to get more
physical and violent overall - which they termed "the gladiator
effect" - leading to an increase in injuries. "There's often this
concern that if we provide additional protection in the way of some type of
equipment or padding that players will then be more aggressive and actually
create more injuries because of the increased aggression," said Andrew
Lincoln, head of sports medicine research at MedStar Health Research Institute
at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore.
However that did not appear to be the case, and
concussion rates, for example, were similar in states where eyewear was and was
not required during the study. Lincoln, who was not involved in the new research,
said that in addition to concerns about athletes becoming more aggressive, some
administrators were worried about the negative effects of adding more equipment
for athletes to buy and more rules for referees to enforce. Cages used for eye
protection run about $25 to $80.
When a similar mandate was introduced in high school
girls' lacrosse, he added, veteran athletes were not fans. "There was a
strong negative reaction among players who had played the game for a number of
years and were not used to using it and thought it affected their vision
negatively," Lincoln told Reuters Health. He said it was reassuring that
the new analysis didn't find an increase in concussions or other
collision-related injuries in states that had protective eyewear rules. "We
have very few of these formal evaluations of a safety intervention or a policy
change in various sports," Lincoln said. Even though it made sense that
eyewear would reduce at least certain kinds of injuries, "We're never
quite sure how things are going to work out in real life."
The new research covers 180 high schools during the
2009 and 2010 fall field hockey seasons. In 2009, six states had policies
mandating protective eyewear for their athletes: Connecticut, Maine,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island. As of 2011-2012, the
National Federation of State High School Associations now requires all field
hockey players wear the equipment. At high schools included in a sports-injury
database, there were 212 eye, face and head injuries during the 2009-2010 and
2010-2011 seasons. Those types of injuries are most often due to athletes being
struck by a wooden field hockey stick or a ball, researchers led by Dr. Peter
Kriz from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said.
In states that required protective eyewear, the
average 20-athlete team had one of those injuries for every 106 practices and
games. In states without those requirements, that rate was one injury for every
72 practices and games for each team. There was one eye injury among 39 schools
with equipment requirements during those seasons, compared to 21 eye injuries
in 141 teams in states without the mandate, according to findings published
Monday in Pediatrics.
"This study adds to an accumulating body of
evidence, most recently demonstrated in high school women's lacrosse, that
mandated protective eyewear effectively and significantly reduces the incidence
of head and facial (including eye) injuries in female athletes where injury
from player contact and playing equipment pose risk," Kriz told Reuters
Health in an email. "We encourage players to adopt protective eyewear
early, at a young age, regardless of the contact/collision sport they play.
Wearing this gear will become second nature, and they will transition easier to
other sports requiring facial protection."
Lincoln agreed that it's easiest for younger players
to adopt the new gear, before they're used to playing without it. "I hope
different sport governing bodies look at these studies and will be more open to
protective equipment for games," he said.
Source: Chicago Tribune
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