Christy L. Collins This is Me

Education

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1. 1. www.pamf.org

   www.pamf.org/health/healthinfo - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/18/2008   Last Visited: 6/19/2008

   About 12 percent of high school baseball injuries result from players being hit by a batted ball, and nearly two-thirds of these injuries are to the head and face or mouth and teeth, said Christy Collins, of the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
   
   "We strongly recommend that at least mouth guards and eye protection be used by all pitchers, infielders and batters at the high school level," Collins told Reuters Health.
   
   Collins and Dr. R. Dawn Comstock reviewed baseball injuries that occurred at a representative sampling 100 U.S. high schools over two seasons, reported by high school athletic trainers to an Internet-based injury surveillance system.
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   "Future research is needed to investigate why face shields, eye protection, and/or mouth guards are not currently being commonly used at the high school level," noted Collins.

2. 2. member.principalhealthnews.com

   member.principalhealthnews.com - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/1/2008   Last Visited: 6/18/2008

   At the very least, players should consider wearing mouth guards, said study author Christy Collins, although she acknowledges that changing the culture of baseball may be a challenge.
   
   "We really want to make sure kids keep participating in sports, we just want them to be as safe as possible," said Collins, a research associate at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
   
   Nearly 500,000 males play baseball at U.S. high schools each year, according to background information for the study. (Females typically play softball.)
   
   Collins and a colleague examined the results of a survey of injuries in athletic programs at 100 high schools across the country, from 2005 to 2007.
   
   A total of 431 baseball injuries were reported for every 341,000 "athletic exposures," each defined as one athlete playing in a practice or game.This produced a rate of 1.26 injuries per 1,000 exposures.
   
   The shoulder was the most commonly injured body part (17.6 percent of injuries), followed by the ankle (13.6 percent) and the head or face (12.3 percent).
   
   Fifty of the injuries were caused by players being hit by batted balls, and nearly two-thirds of those balls were to the head/face and mouth/teeth.Nearly one in five batted ball injuries required surgery, the study revealed.
   
   "We found that not only were pitchers at risk of being hit by a batted ball, but also batters were at risk as well as infielders," Collins said.
   
   Based on their findings, the study authors recommend that pitchers, batters and infielders wear helmets with face shields.At the least, the players -- especially pitchers -- should wear mouth guards to protect their teeth, Collins said.
   
   "Its not widely accepted at the high school level to wear that type of protective equipment, although we know mouth guards are effective, and they're widely available," Collins said.
   
   It's not clear why baseball players don't use better protective equipment now, Collins said.
   ...
   SOURCES: Christy L. Collins, MA, Center for Injury Research and Policy, Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio; James G. Linakis, M.D., Ph.D., associate director, Pediatric Emergency Medicine, physician researcher, Injury Prevention Center, Hasbro Children's Hospital/Rhode Island Hospital, and associate professor, emergency medicine and pediatrics, the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University, Providence; June 2008 Pediatrics

3. 3. www.chicagotribune.com

   www.chicagotribune.com/service - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/2/2008   Last Visited: 6/2/2008

   Christy Collins' vision for the future of baseball can be glimpsed through the polycarbonate bars of a face mask.
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   As part of a wider survey on sports injuries, Collins, a researcher at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, looked at two seasons of high school trainers' reports.She found that extreme injuries-fractures, concussions and dental damage-were more likely to afflict players who had been hit by a batted ball.
   
   "It can be pretty costly to treat head and face injuries," she said, "as well as having an impact on the player-keeping them out of play, changing their outlook on sports. . . . Sports are one of the major ways kids can have a physically fit and healthy lifestyle.If a player sustains an injury, they may quit in the long term, and we definitely don't want that to happen."
   
   Though some have tried curbing those injuries by limiting the size of bats or allowing only wooden ones, Collins said the best defense would be for all infielders to sport helmets and face shields, or at least mouth guards and protective eye wear.She speculated that the same advice would benefit younger athletes, who play on smaller fields and whose reflexes aren't as sharp.