Elsevier

Physical Therapy in Sport

Volume 42, March 2020, Pages 91-99
Physical Therapy in Sport

Original Research
Injury types and frequency in Spanish inline hockey players

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ptsp.2020.01.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Inline hockey produces a high number of severe injuries such as fractures.

  • Skating/overuse was the most common mechanism of injury in inline hockey players.

  • The predominant type of injury suffered by athletes were ankle sprains.

  • Players aged 20 years and older were more susceptible to facial injuries than those aged under 20 years.

Abstract

Objective

To describe injury types and frequencies in Spanish inline hockey players.

Design

Descriptive epidemiological study.

Setting

Amateur inline hockey teams competing in Spanish leagues between 2010-2011 and 2016–2017 seasons.

Participants

154 inline hockey players (aged 10–42 years).

Main outcome measurements

Injury incidence, body segment injured, injury mechanism and severity, type of injury, type of play at the time of injury, time of the season at time of injury, location on the rink at the time of injury, player position and use of protective equipment.

Results

80 injuries were reported. More than twice as many injuries occurred during games (67.5%) as practice (32.5%). The most common body site injured was the ankle (20%). Fractures (28.7%), and sprains (26.3%) were the most common type of injury. Non-contact skating (23.7%), falls (18.7%), and player contact (18.7%) were the most common mechanism of injury. Ankle sprain (10%) was the most common body site-type injury. Severe injuries (≥29 days’ time lost) occurred more often than mild to moderate injuries (<29 days’ time lost).

Conclusions

The risk of severe injury for inline hockey players is high. Non-contact injuries such as skating and falls had a high incidence. The characteristics of inline skating surface, mechanics of inline skating and fatigue may be the cause of a significant amount of the lower extremity sprain injuries. Continued surveillance is warranted to evaluate inline hockey injury trends over time.

Introduction

As the popularity of inline skating has increased so too has the level of participation in inline hockey among the general population as both recreational and competitive activity. Currently, inline hockey is played in many countries throughout the world and has become a popular sport for both men and women in many regions of Spain. Participation in inline hockey in Spain continues to increase. Over the seven year period, from 2011 through 2018, the number of Spanish participants in inline hockey increased from 3304 to 5564, an increase of almost 70% (Consejo Superior de Deportes, 2018). In the season 2015–2016, 88 teams and 1604 inline hockey players were registered in National Inline Hockey League. By 2017–2018 season, 142 teams were participating in National Inline Hockey Leagues involving 2414 inline hockey players (Real Federación Española, 2019).

Inline hockey is an exciting, fast-paced game played with sticks, skates with wheels in-line, and puck. Inline hockey is associated with many potential risk factors of injury such as high-velocity skating up to 25 mph (40 km/h), falls, rapid changes in direction, unintended contact with players, and contact from the boards, stick or puck. Previous investigations have reported a high rate of injury in inline hockey (Hutchinson, Milhouse, & Gapski, 1998; Varlotta, Lager, Nicholas, Browne, & Schlifstein, 2000).

Although injuries in inline skating and ice hockey have been widely investigated on their own (Agel, Dompier, Dick, & Marshall, 2007; Flik, Lyman, & Marx, 2005; Frankovich, Petrella, & Lattanzio, 2001; Lorenzon, Wedrèn, & Pietilä, 1988; Molsa, Kujala, Nasman, Lehtipuu, & Airaksinen, 2000; Moreno-Alcaraz, López-Miñarro, & Rodríguez, 2012), there is a lack of research regarding injuries occurring during inline hockey specifically. Only two studies regarding injury data for professional inline hockey players were published eighteen and twenty years ago (Hutchinson et al., 1998; Varlotta et al., 2000), with no subsequent investigations. Both were based on professional American inline hockey players. No authors have previously examined hockey injuries in amateur Spanish inline hockey players.

The purpose of this study was to describe the injury patterns in amateur Spanish inline hockey players with respect to the distribution of injuries by body region, injury incidence, type of injury, injury mechanism and severity, type of exposure (game vs. practice), nature of injury, player position, location on the rink, and the timing of injuries during the season (season moment). The utility of these data is the need to monitor injury patterns, to identify risk factors and to drive the development of evidence-based preventive interventions. Such important information is needed by team physicians, athletic trainers/therapists, equipment managers, coaches, parents and players (Deits, Yard, Collins, Fields, & Comstock, 2010; Engebretsen et al., 2014; Van Mechelen, Hlobil, & Kemper, 1992).

Section snippets

Methods

The research sample consisted of 154 inline hockey players, 24 females and 130 males, with ages between 10 and 42 years old (23.25 ± 11.85), from ten amateur Spanish inline hockey teams participating in different Spanish inline hockey leagues from 2010 to 2011 through the 2016–2017 season.

Since there are no ongoing community-level surveillance systems for monitoring injury patterns of inline hockey in Spain, the athletic trainer/therapist from each team received an informative email concerning

Overall injury characteristics

Over six years a total of 80 injuries were recorded. Demographic characteristics of sample size are shown in Table 1. The overall injury incidence including practice and game injury rate was 121.2 per 1000 AEs, practice injury incidence was 54.2 per 1000 AEs, and game injury incidence was 300 per 1000 AEs.

A summary of the most common body region, injury type and injury mechanism combinations are displayed in Table 2. All injuries that accounted for at least 2% of reported injuries are shown.

Discussion

The aim of this study was to describe injuries occurring in amateur Spanish inline hockey players. Previous investigations have associated inline hockey with a high risk of injury (Hutchinson et al., 1998; Varlotta et al., 2000). However, this information was collected 18 and 20 years ago respectively with no subsequent investigations. The present study showed an estimated game injury rate of 300 per 1000 AEs (54 injuries/180 games ×1000 AEs). When we use the same methodology in our study to

Limitations

Several limitations should be considered in this study. First, it must be noted that these findings were collected from amateur Spanish inline hockey players competing in different levels and different aged so it may not be generalizable to other inline hockey populations. The current study represents a small sample size reporting the initial results of risk profiling in amateur male and female inline hockey players, however, further research is now required with larger cohorts. The

Conclusion

This is the first study to collect injury data in amateur Spanish inline hockey players and the first study on inline hockey injuries in over 19 years.

The risk of severe injury by inline hockey players is high. Non-contact injuries such as skating injuries have a high prevalence among amateur Spanish inline hockey players. The characteristics of inline skating surfaces, time of exposure, poor physical condition and fatigue may be the causes of a significant amount of the lower extremity sprain

Ethical statement

The work has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki).

The manuscript has been approved by the Ethical Committee of University of Murcia.

Funding

This research is part of the project entitled “Study of injury risk in young athletes through artificial intelligence networks,” funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (reference: DEP2017-88775-P). This study was carried out during the research stay at the Facoltà di Scienze Motorie of Università degli Studi di Urbino “Carlo Bo” from 29/10/2018 to 03/02/2019 funded by Erasmus Teaching. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish,

Declaration of competing interest

None declared.

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