Preventing spinal cord injuries in rugby union

doi:10.1136/bmj.39156.483634.80

BMJ 2007;334:1122-1123 (2 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.39156.483634.80 (published 18 May 2007)

Editorials

Preventing spinal cord injuries in rugby union

Other countries should follow New Zealand's lead

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Spinal cord injuries were first identified as an important sportingproblem in the early and mid-1970s in rugby union,¹ ² American(gridiron) football,³ and ice hockey.⁴ Subsequent studies haveidentified the most common mechanisms that cause these injuries.⁵⁶ In some sports, like such as American football, single mechanismsthat cause spinal injury, such as the spear tackle, have beenidentified,⁷ which has allowed effective preventive measuresto be swiftly implemented (the spear tackle has now been bannedin gridiron football).⁸ But in other sports progress in preventingspinal injury has been slow and difficult to measure.

In this week's BMJ, a before and after study by Quarrie andcolleagues assesses the effect of RugbySmart, a nationwide educationalinjury prevention programme, on the frequency of spinal cordinjuries in New Zealand rugby union.⁹ It found that the introductionof the programme in 2001 coincided with a reduction in the numberof . . . [Full text of this article]

Timothy David Noakes, Discovery Health Professor of Exercise and Sports Science, Catherine E Draper, postdoctoral research fellow

Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town and Sports Science Institute of South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa

Noakes@iafrica.com

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This article has been cited by other articles:

Orchard, J. W (2008). Preventing sports injuries at the national level: time for other nations to follow New Zealand's remarkable success. Br. J. Sports. Med. 42: 392-393 [Full text]
Greystoke, A. P (2007). Time to address safety in the tackle. BMJ 334: 1235-1235 [Full text]