Basketball Head Injuries

Traumatic brain injuries from basketball increasing among adolescents, study suggests.
ABC World News (9/13, story 8, 2:20, Sawyer) reported, "Some sobering news tonight about the most popular sport for American children and teens, basketball." When "you think of the hazards of basketball, you think of sprained ankles or sprained fingers, but a journal called Pediatrics has a new study which says the number of teenagers and adolescents suffering traumatic brain injuries from basketball is soaring." ABC's Sharyn Alfonsi explained, "Researchers say traumatic brain injuries associated with playing basketball, mostly concussions, spiked 70 percent over 10 years." More "kids now play basketball than any other sport," and emergency departments "report basketball now accounts for more head injuries than even football."
The New York Times (9/13, Parker-Pope) "Well" blog reported that "about 375,000 children and teenagers are treated in hospital emergency rooms each year for basketball-related injuries." Notably, "the proportion related to head trauma is on the rise." In 2007, "the last year of the study, about four percent of youth basketball injuries were to the head, about double the number of such injuries reported by emergency rooms in 1997." Boys "were most likely to experience cuts, fractures, and dislocations; girls were more likely to suffer head or knee injuries." Among boys, "the percentage of head injuries doubled over the period, but among girls, it tripled," the blog added.
The CNN (9/13, Henry) "The Chart" blog reported that the number of basketball-related injuries, however, "decreased over the course of the study and totaled more than four million during the 11 year period." According to senior study author Dr. Laura B. McKenzie, "the study did not include patients who were treated outside of emergency rooms, so it's likely the overall number of basketball related injuries is greater."