GymnasticsInjuryDatabase.com

[bogwoppit]

From Rick McCharles gymnasticscoaching.com blog.

Greetings,

I would like to enlist your help in creating and supporting a national injury database for gymnastics. The database is an attempt to gather nationwide injury data by a “crowdsourcing” approach.

“Crowdsourcing is the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.”

Many of us have called for a national injury database for gymnastics injuries. Sadly, these calls have failed because of lack of resources, imagination, funding, and will. I hope this attempt will be successful. I know that the success or failure of the database will depend on your willingness to participate and your vigilance in continually submitting injury information.

You should know that personal identifying information will not be acquired. Your participation is completely anonymous. Participants simply fill in a form. I will process the data and add it to a database. The database will be maintained offline to ensure that the dataset cannot be hacked. The results of analyses of the continually accumulating data will be published periodically on the website.

I hope you will help.

Here’s the website: GymnasticsInjuryData.com

Thanks,

Wm A Sands, PhD, FACSM, CSCS
2300 South 2100 East
Salt Lake City, UT 84109
719.313.8915

wmasands (a) hotmail.com

 

[bogwoppit]

Bill Sands is a very well respected doctor in gymnastics circles, it would be great if our community can help him out.

 

[profmom]

Oh dear. I hope that no one involved is planning to publish on this in a peer-reviewed journal. If anyone is, and is reading here, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR INSTITUTION'S IRB IMMEDIATELY. Your consent process is inadequate. It's an easy fix, but it must be done if you hope to publish.

 

[Seeker]

I made an entry. I hope I never have the data to make another one!

 

[bogwoppit]

Oh dear. I hope that no one involved is planning to publish on this in a peer-reviewed journal. If anyone is, and is reading here, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR INSTITUTION'S IRB IMMEDIATELY. Your consent process is inadequate. It's an easy fix, but it must be done if you hope to publish.

You might want to aim that at Dr Sands. I sure am not planning to publish!!

 

[Ingwe]

I am happy to contribute. Lord knows she's had enough injuries over the past year and a half.

 

[Iwannabemargo]

I assumed from the post that this only applied to gymnasts in the US, but having clicked through (Curiosity killed the cat) I see that he is collecting data from the US, Canada, Australia and the UK, and from all disciplines. Just thought I would let other non-US peeps know.

 

[Midwestmommy]

I looked at the form and there is nowhere to enter a date or date range for when the injury happened. How can this be even remotely scientific at all with no way to compare results to a size of population, no verification of when the injury happend (last week, 10 years ago). Are parents supposed to be filling this out? How would you know if both a gymnast and their parent filled it out? I applaud the effort, but I'd need a little more convincing to see how this can be useful or informative....

 

[bogwoppit]

I am sure the creator of the site would be open to input from the community, just drop them an email.

 

[Faith]

I think the creator of the site needs input from research scientists and/or statisticians.

It's a good idea in theory, but it looks like he may end up with reams of data which can't be interpreted.

Does it specify the injury has to be gymnastics related (i.e training accident or overuse) ? Or is it any injury keeping them from gymnastics? What about previous medical history like hypermobility that may increase risk of certain injuries- plus he's included all gymnastics- WAG injuries will be different to rhythmic, which will be different to tramp etc...

What's the aim? To try and see if certain injuries are more common?

 

[teksquad]

Perhaps to get an idea of what injuries are common, and if there are safety issues that need to be addressed, if certain patterns form.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

you naysayers do NOT know Bill. and Teksquad, ^^^ yes to both of the above.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

I think the creator of the site needs input from research scientists and/or statisticians.

It's a good idea in theory, but it looks like he may end up with reams of data which can't be interpreted.

Does it specify the injury has to be gymnastics related (i.e training accident or overuse) ? Or is it any injury keeping them from gymnastics? What about previous medical history like hypermobility that may increase risk of certain injuries- plus he's included all gymnastics- WAG injuries will be different to rhythmic, which will be different to tramp etc...

What's the aim? To try and see if certain injuries are more common?

BTW, Dr. Sands IS a research scientist. http://www.advancedstudyofgymnastics.com/

 

[Deleted member D3987]

and for everyone...when you see the names of Dr. Larry Nassar, Dr. Gerald George, Dr. William Sands and Dr. Peter Pidcoe ...their names and knowledge are gospel in the sport of gymnastics. both here in the USA and abroad.

 

[curlymomof3]

^^^^I agree! Dr Sands definitely knows his stuff!

 

[profmom]

If the study had been run through us, securing informed consent would have been required. I'd also have recommended adding a few more categories for analysis and clarifying a few things in the survey. I think it's a great and long overdue project that will produce useful results, but one that could have been done a little better.

(And that is pretty much what all academics say to each other all the time when we engage in the process of peer review.)