After some radio silence we are back in business. A lot of novel things to share, starting with this just published paper by Joske Nauta on the injury risk during different physical activity behaviours in children's activities.
The current focus on a physically active lifestyle in children puts children at increased physical activity-related injury risk. This review set out to summarise the evidence for the injury risk of several physical activity behaviours in 6- to 12-year-old children.
An electronic search was performed in three databases (Embase, PubMed and SPORTDiscus). Including papers that studied children between the ages of 6 and 12 years, and reported on injury incidence rates related to overall physical activity, active commuting, unorganised leisure time physical activity, physical education and/or organised sports.
Based on these criteria only eight studies could be included, of which 2 only had a low risk of bias. The medically treated, injury incidence rate was reported to be between 0.15 and 0.27 injuries per 1,000 h of physical activity. The absolute number of injuries related to unorganised leisure time physical activity was higher than the absolute number of injuries reported in organised sports. The respective injury incidence rate expressed per 1,000 h exposure was, however, generally lower during unorganised leisure time than during organised sports. Reported injury incidence rates related to active commuting were comparable to those for unorganised leisure time physical activity. Conflicting injury incidence rates were reported for physical education. Subgroup analysis suggested that girls and children with low habitual levels of physical activity are at increased injury risk.
Based on this overview it was concluded that children are at an inherent injury risk while participating in physical activities. Most injury prevention efforts have focussed on the sports setting, but our results suggest that many children sustain an injury during unorganised leisure time physical activities.
Nauta, J., van Mechelen, W., & Verhagen, E. (2014). Injury Risk During Different Physical Activity Behaviours in Children: A Systematic Review with Bias Assessment. Sports Medicine, 1–10. http://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-014-0289-0
The full article can be found here