The trampoline can be dangerous: it is involved in almost half of the admissions of children to emergencies.
- Children who frequented trampoline parks tended to be older than those who trampolined at home.
- Arm injuries and concussions were less likely to occur at trampoline parks than at home.
Head injuries, fractures, shock to the spine… Children who go to trampoline parks are more likely to be seriously injured and need to be hospitalized than young people who jump on this large canvas stretched and mounted on springs home. This was revealed by scientists from the University of Sydney in Australia in work published in the journal Injury Prevention June 13.
In order to reach this conclusion, they tried to obtain information on the location and type of injuries caused by trampolines in children. For this, the researchers reviewed the results of 11 cohorts out of an initial total of 154, detailing nearly 13.9 million injuries. This research was carried out in the United States, South Korea, Canada, United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.
A difference between injuries
A total of 1,386,843 injuries were recorded. According to the authors, the trampoline causes nearly 100,000 children’s emergency room visits each year in the United States. In the UK, trampolining injuries were responsible for half of emergency room admissions in under-14s. Similarly, in Australia, trampoline-related injuries led to 1,500 children being admitted to hospital each year between 2002 and 2011.
“There was an increased likelihood of musculoskeletal and/or orthopedic injuries, lower extremity injuries, sprains and the need for surgery at trampoline parks compared to playing this hobby at home” , can we read in the results. “The higher tensile strength used in trampoline parks can produce a harder bounce that amplifies the load on bones and ligaments,” explained the team in a statement.
Raise awareness
The researchers concluded that there is an urgent need to develop and implement prevention strategies, raise public awareness and impose mandatory safety standards for trampoline parks to limit the risk of injury.
