RNS: Cheerleading Injuries, August 2009
TIME: 2:59
URL: http://www2.med.umich.edu/prmc/media/newsroom/details.cfm?ID=1237
U-M Health Minute: Today’s top health issues and medical research
Cheerleading is leading cause of catastrophic injury in young women
Expert recommends parents and schools monitor activities, coaching and safety precautions more closely
Suggested Lead: Cheerleading has become the leading cause of catastrophic injury in young female athletes. University of Michigan Health System expert discusses cheerleading injuries and advises parents on how to help keep their children cheering safely. Here is Andi McDonnell with more.
As a bright, young cheerleader trying out for the high school varsity squad, 14-year-old Laura Jackson had everything going for her.
But when a back flip went wrong during a try-out without a trained spotter on hand, Laura landed on her head fracturing her neck and damaging her spinal cord. Laura is now paralyzed and breathes with the help of a ventilator.
“It was the 2nd day of tryouts and that was like when you did tumbling and I was getting ready to do a back tuck and I wasn’t prepared right or I had done something wrong and there was no real spotters there so I had a girl that was just a couple years older than me spotting me and I was tall - I was 5’7, 5’8 and she was probably the same so it wasn’t like she’d catch me or anything, so I got ready and I did the back flip and I landed right on my head and I remember just like laying there and immediately I stopped breathing like within, you know, the first second I fell.”
Cheerleading has become the leading cause of catastrophic injury in young female athletes, says Amy Miller Bohn, a team physician and clinician in the Department of Family Medicine physician at the University of Michigan Health System.
“Cheerleading injuries are increasingly common. We know from data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission that rates of injuries have gone from nearly 5-thousand in 1980 to close to 26 to 28-thousand just in the past few years”.
Cheerleading injuries appear to be on the rise partly because of an increase in participants, but the sport has also changed significantly in the last 25 years. Cheerleading no longer consists of athletes standing on the sidelines, rooting for a team.
Miller Bohn tells us . . .
“If you want to be one of the better teams, competing at a better level and invited to some of the greatest competitions, you have to have a higher degree of activity with the risk that you’re taking, the stunts that you’re doing and involving in your activity. This no longer involves a simple, small pyramid but actually tossing people up into the air quite high, jumping off of pyramids and trying very risky stunts”.
Miller Bohn believes there aren’t enough safety measures in place in schools. Many athletes will practice in places such as a back yard, a hard gym floor or a parking lot. There are often no supportive surfaces to shield them from falls.
Participants also lack adequate supervision. If an adequately trained coach is not present to ensure participants are using proper techniques and make sure spotters are placed where they should, injuries may occur.
Miller Bohn recommends . . .
“Resources that can be used to determine what safety recommendations are available for cheerleading involve such foundations as the National Cheer Safety Foundation. They have programs that they put on quite frequently and are accessible through the internet to find out what their recommendations are and things that parents can ask of the coach”.
Andi McDonnell, U of M Health System news
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