Epidemiology of Hospital-Treated Injuries Sustained by Fitness Participants

Abstract

Fitness activity-related injury prevention strategies should be targeted at different subgroups according to the type of fitness activity being undertaken.

The causes of injuries sustained at fitness facilities presenting to Victorian emergency departments - identifying the main culprits

“…Only three previous published studies have explored the causes of injuries associated with fitness activities (Gray and Finch 2015, Salmon et al 2000, Kerr et al 2010). One of these studies also used VEMD data and found that the majority of injuries associated with aerobics (or group exercise classes) were due to falls (Salmon et al 2000).…”

“…Limitations of the VEMD aerobics study (Salmon et al 2000) are that it was published more than 10 years ago and used only pre-coded data and so did not provide the same level of detailed cause information as in this study. Another study used both VEMD and Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset (all hospital admissions in Victoria, Australia) data to determine the epidemiology of fitness-related injuries, provided an overview of the types and causes of such injuries (Gray and Finch 2015) and found that falls were most common during aerobics and when using other equipment; and the majority of resistance training injuries were associated with being hit or struck by weights or fellow exercisers.…”

“…Whilst it is possible that fitness facilities could maintain their own injury surveillance system, this data is not publically available and cannot be used to generate a cross-fitness industry profile. Therefore, the VEMD was queried as it is the only known publically available source of injuries associated with fitness facilities in Australia (Gray and Finch 2015). …”

“…Fitness activities performed in fitness facilities can have the potential to cause harm and injuries sustained by fitness activity participants can result in interruptions to their daily life, loss of income, temporary or permanent disability, or in severe cases, death (Andrew et al 2014, Gray and Finch 2015). As the popularity of fitness facilities increases, so too does the risk of injury on a pure exposure basis.…”

“…Emergency department data which contains narrative details on the incidents and causal factors leading to injury is a potentially useful source of injury data (Gray and Finch 2015). Databases of this nature describe cases where the person injured has deemed the injury severe (or acute) enough for them to seek treatment at a hospital emergency department.…”