Tuesday, January 3, 2006

Study: Cheerleading injuries on the rise

CHICAGO (AP) -- Cheerleaders catapult in the air, climb human
pyramids and catch their tumbling teammates as they fall to the ground.

They also make lots
of emergency room visits.

Research indicates
cheerleading injuries more than doubled from 1990 through 2002, while
participation grew just 18 percent over the same period.

"Cheerleading
is not what it used to be. It's no longer standing on the sidelines looking
cute in a skirt," said Erin Brooks, a former cheerleader who teaches a safety
course in Mississippi.
"It's more body skills."

A study published
Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics estimates 208,800 young people ages 5 to 18
were treated at U.S.
hospitals for cheerleading-related injures during the 13-year period. Most of
the injuries were suffered by 12- to 17-year-olds; nearly 40 percent were
leg, ankle and foot injuries.

Almost all the
patients in the study were treated at emergency rooms and released. But
because researchers used only ER numbers gathered by the Consumer Product
Safety Commission, the true number of those injured is even greater, since
many kids are treated at doctors' offices or by team trainers, researchers
said.

The rise in
injuries is probably because the stunts are increasingly difficult, the
researchers said. Cheerleading has "evolved from a school-spirit
activity into an activity demanding high levels of gymnastics skill and
athleticism," the study said.

"It's not just
standing on sidelines with pompoms going, 'Rah, rah, rah.' It uses
gymnastics, and some stunts are certainly more dangerous than others,"
said Dr. Barry Boden, an orthopedic surgeon
specializing in sports medicine at Rockville,
Md., who was not involved in
the study.

Cheerleading is not
considered a sanctioned sport by some state high school athletic
associations. As a result, coaches are not always trained, and some schools
lack the proper facilities and equipment, said the study's lead author,
Brenda Shields, an injury researcher at Columbus Children's Research
Institute in Ohio.

Some cheerleaders
"practice in hallways and practice on hard surfaces instead of
mats," Shields said. "So when they fall off a pyramid or from in
the air and they land on hard surfaces, the chances for injury are
drastically increased."

The study
recommends that coaches get professional safety training and that high schools and cheerleading associations adopt
uniform safety procedures and also develop a national database for injuries.

That is something
the Memphis, Tenn.-based American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and
Advisors has been advocating for several years.

The association
publishes a safety manual for cheerleaders and offers safety courses for
coaches around the country, said the group's executive director, Jim Lord.

He said several factors,
including the popularity of televised cheerleading competitions, have
encouraged more cheerleaders and coaches to mimic difficult tumbling moves
before they have the right training.

"It's not that
the sport is dangerous, but it's people trying skills
they shouldn't," Lord said. "Basket tosses are the most difficult
skill you can do, but that doesn't mean you should do them."