[Inline skating in school--perspectives from the sports medicine viewpoint].

INTRODUCTION

Children are motivated by new activities in physical education. Inline Skating (ILS) is one of the trend activities of the last years. For the establishment of ILS in school injury risks and the possible preventive transfer in leisure time activities are of interest. The aim of this study was to compare the incidence of injuries in an ILS-program in school with traditional activities of exercise lessons. Furthermore inline skate specific injury incidence in leisure time was evaluated.

METHOD: A sample of 47 schools was evaluated by a standardized questionnaire asking for: injury incidence in traditional sports and ILS and the incidence of ILS-injuries in leisure time.

RESULTS

The relative injury risk of ILS (% per 100 teaching units) is 14.3%. Basketball e.g. has an injury risk of 16.1%, handball 14.6%, gymnastics 13.9% and other games 9.5%. After the end of the ILS-program 37.3% of the students reported the incidence of an injury due to ILS in leisure time.

CONCLUSION

Compared to other activities in physical education ILS shows a moderate risk of injury and may improve the acceptance of active and passive prophylaxis.