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What do you think are the most common injuries in Footy?

Well the 2017 AFL injury survey results have just been released. They paint a detailed picture of the injury prevalence and severity facing AFL clubs and players.

In summary:

• The most common injury in AFL footy is Hamstring strain, accounting for 4.9 new injuries per club in 2017 (or 88 hamstring injuries in total), resulting in 299 missed games for the year.
• When you combine all foot and ankle injuries, there were 5.54 new injuries per club in 2017, 2.6 injuries per club were ankle sprains
• There were 4.1 knee injuries/club, of which 1.7/club were ligament injuries.
• Groin/Osteitis Pubis accounted for 1.5 injuries/club

Interestingly:

• Injury rates are far higher during matches than in training
• ACL injuries are by far and away the most severe injury (measured in terms of time lost), followed by recurrent concussions, leg injuries, achilles and shoulder injuries
• 8% of injuries were recurrent injuries
• Injury Surveillance System data collected at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children (PMH) in Perth, Australia,  between July 2007 and June 2017 relating to childhood sporting injuries. Over the 10 year period 39,541 children presented to the PMH emergency department with what was classified as a sports related injury. However, quite a few of these would appear to be related to general physical activity or active transport (e.g. cycling, trampolining, scootering) rather than organised sports activity. However, of the sport specific results:
• Australian Rules Football accounted for the most sport-related injuries at 12.6% followed by: soccer 9%, basketball 6.8%, netball 4.6%, rugby 4.2%, cricket 1.4%, hockey 1.3%, and ice skating 1.2%
• Australian sports injury hospitalisations 2011-12, Kreisfeld R, Harrison J and Pointer S, Injury Research and Statistics Series Number 92, AIHW Catalogue Number INJCAT 168, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2014). During 2011-12, over 36,000 people aged 15 and over were hospitalised as the result of an injury sustained while playing sport, spending a total of 79,000 days in hospital, though these numbers are likely to represent a significant underestimate of sporting injuries. This figure represented 8% of all injury hospitalisations during that period of time…. Australian Rules football and soccer had the highest population-based age-standardised rates of injury hospitalisation (18 and 17 cases per 100,000 population, respectively