Karate injuries in children and adolescents

Objectives: To identify risk factors for injury and to establish safety gui delines for children in Uechi-Ryu karate. Design: A 1-year retrospective su rvey of injuries. Setting: A private karate school (Uechi-Ryu style) in Ply mouth, MA. Patients: A total of 68 athletes (age 6-16 years; mean age 10 ye ars) who participated in karate during the 1995-1996 season. Interventions: None. Main outcome measures: The presence or absence of injury, with gradi ng of injuries as major, moderate or minor. The types of injuries and body region involved were also analyzed. Results: Twenty eight percent of athlet es sustained at least one injury. All injuries were minor, with no time off from training required. The injuries consisted primarily of bruises (11 of 19). Other injuries included mild sprains or strains (5 of 19) and having their 'wind knocked out' (3 of 19). Most injuries were localized to the ext remities. Logistic regression analysis identified risk factors for injury. Risk of injury increased with number of years of training (odds ratio 2.95; 95% confidence interval 1.81-4.82; P < 0.0001), number of hours per week ( odds ratio 2.12; CI 1.15-4.21; P = 0.016) and rank, specifically brown belt versus lower belts (odds ratio 6.56; CI 2.02-21.26; P = 0.006). Conclusion s: Karate is a relatively safe sport for children and adolescents when prop erly taught. Risk of injury increases with experience; therefore, greater s upervision is required of higher ranks. Injury increases with weekly traini ng; however, 3 h a week or less appears to be associated with a low risk of significant injury in this age group. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All r ights reserved.