title: Head injuries in hospital-admitted adolescents and adults with skateboard-related trauma.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To provide new information on properties of skateboarders who were hospital admitted with head injuries with details of the injuries including region of head impact.
  
  
  METHODS
  Hospital records of patients aged 15 and older with a skateboard injury admitted to one Level II Trauma Centre during a 10-year period were reviewed. Data on demographic, exposure, severity, diagnostic and clinical factors for patients with head injury (HI) and without HI (N-HI) were compared analytically.
  
  
  RESULTS
  While there were no differences for patients with HI and N-HI by age, gender, mechanism of injury or alcohol use, patients with HI were more severely injured. Although significantly more head impacts occurred to the occipital region of the head, haematomas and/or contusions were much more likely to occur in the frontal region of the brain. Acute neurosurgical intervention was needed in 14% of HI skateboarders.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Skateboarding is not an innocuous recreational activity, with head injury present in 75% of patients who were hospital-admitted. Pre-hospital treatment protocols should be aware of this growing injured population. Falls while on a skateboard lead to impacts to the back of head with a contra-coup brain injury resulting in severe and sometimes fatal outcomes. The very low prevalence of helmet use among skateboarders with head injuries indicates that greater efforts should be directed toward incentives for their use.
authors.affiliation: Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla Trauma Service , La Jolla, CA , USA and.
authors.forename: Gail T
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Tominaga
authors.forename: Kathryn B
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Schaffer
authors.forename: Imad S
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Dandan
authors.forename: Frank J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Coufal
authors.forename: Jess F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Kraus
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D006259:Craniocerebral Trauma / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006260:Head Protective Devices; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012861:Skating / Q000293:injuries* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014193:Trauma Centers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Contra-coup injury; epidemiology; skateboard-related injury; skull impact