According to physicians, pickleball-related injuries are increasing

 The rise in pickleball players' significant injuries has coincided with the sport's explosive growth in popularity.

A presentation of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons' annual meeting on Monday included an examination of a huge government injury database, which revealed that the number of bone fractures associated with pickleball had increased by 200% in the last 20 years.

According to USA Pickleball, pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the United States, with players jumping from 4.8 million in 2021 to 8.9 million in 2023. The game is played on a badminton-sized court using a perforated plastic ball and wooden paddles.

What are the most common pickleball injuries?

Most certainly, the overall injury rate is far greater. The most frequent soft tissue injuries, such sprained ankles, or crippling knee injuries, like injury to the anterior cruciate ligament, were not included in the new investigation; instead, it focused solely on fractures. Other frequent pickleball injuries include foot fractures, rotator cuff tears, deteriorating arthritis, and rips or strains in the Achilles tendon.

92% of the fractures that were discovered in the new study happened during falls.

The study's lead author, Yasmine Ghattas, who is a final-year medical student at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine in Orlando, stated, "Although pickleball is a great sport, nothing is without risk."

The researchers are only recommending that people be more prepared—not that they should stop playing pickleball.Alright,informed participation in any activity is key,” she said.

Ghattas was personally invested in the subject.

She stated, "My fiancé and I are both entering the orthopedic field and we play pickleball regularly." "We noticed that more and more patients were coming in with fractures related to pickleball during our clinical rotations. We looked to see if there were any studies, but there weren't, so we decided to dig deeper."

A representative sample of injuries from 100 U.S. emergency departments was collected for the study by the researchers using the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database, which was maintained by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. In the database, Ghattas and her colleagues discovered descriptions of 377 fractures connected to pickleball that occurred between 2002 and 2022. These fractures, when extrapolated to the full population of the United States, amounted to about 5,400 fractures due to pickleball every year.

Women were more likely than men to suffer a fracture, particularly if they were 65 years of age or older. The majority of such fractures affected the hands and forearms, among other upper-body bones. The scientists believe they have something to do with osteoporosis or other disorders that weaken bones.

Men were 2.3 times more likely to be admitted to the hospital after fracturing a bone, despite the fact that women had more fractures overall. Ghattas and her associates surmise that this is the case because fractures in males typically occur in lower limb bones, such the hip and femur, which are more likely to necessitate hospitalization than fractures in the upper body.

Although the expansion of the sport may be primarily responsible for the increase in injuries, other reasons may be coming into play, according to Dr. Eric Bowman, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who teaches orthopedic surgery.

According to Bowman, who was not involved in the study, some of the people taking up the sport may not have known enough about it beforehand.“It’s not enough to just pick up a paddle and get out there,” he said. “As with any sport, you have to learn the mechanics and the form that leads to better performance and injury prevention. Some people may not have learned enough, or be physically prepared in advance.”

A study co-authored by Bowman that has not yet been published finds that between 2017 and 2022, the incidence of pickleball-related injuries rose faster than the growth of the sport’s popularity.

Bowman’s study found that soft tissue injuries were the most common overall. Fractures and a worsening of arthritis were increasingly found in patients 60 and older.

While a sport like pickleball might be good for the cardiovascular system, the study shows that people need to be careful about how they begin, said Dr. Spencer Stein, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery in the division of sports medicine at NYU Langone Health in New York City.

“You want to be careful any time you enter a new sport,” Stein said. “You should get checked by your primary care doctor and get screened for osteoporosis or thinning bones.”

It’s also important that you warm up before playing and choose the right shoes for the sport, Stein said. And you should learn a very important skill: falling in a way that’s unlikely to lead to injury, he said. “If you fall more towards your side, you can protect your head but not putting your wrists at risk,” he added.Pickleball is perceived as a relatively safe sport because it is less physically demanding than sports like tennis, according to Stein. Nonetheless, folks who are overly competitive may go overboard.

According to Stein, middle-aged women are susceptible to fractures because they may already be losing bone. He stated that's why getting a bone scan is crucial. "Those scans are usually started at age 65, but it makes sense to start earlier, even as young as age 50, if there is a family history of fractures," he continued.

This article was originally published on Yahoo.Com