Foot & ankle injuries in motocross riders

MEDIA BACKGROUNDER

NZ Orthopaedic Association Annual Scientific Meeting – Auckland Sky City Convention Centre – October 15- 17 2007

Wednesday October 17

Foot & ankle injuries in motocross riders – an analysis of injury patterns – Murali Reddy, registrar, Middlemore Hospital, Auckland

Motocross motor biking has seen a great upsurge in popularity since 2000. With extreme sports comes extreme injuries, characterised by high-energy trauma patterns. 55% of all such injuries are orthopaedic in nature, with a significant proportion comprising foot and ankle injuries.

In New Zealand, recreational motor biking made up 2.3% of all ACC coded sporting injuries in 2002. At Middlemore Hospital there has been a greatly increased number of motocross injuries over the past decade.

The study was a retrospective review of 208 episodes of trauma in 176 patients between February 1993 and June 2005, at Middlemore. 31 of these trauma episodes in 30 patients suffered foot and ankle trauma (17% of all patients, 15% of all trauma episodes). The aim of the study was to describe the demography of the motocross injury patient population, any associations between modes of injury and resultant injury patterns and to identify any injury clusters peculiar to the motocross foot and ankle injury subgroup.

The findings revealed that the majority of patients are male Caucasions with a mean age of 26 years. The majority of injuries occurred when the rider was ejected from the bike. The study concluded that foot and ankle trauma represented a significant proportion of all orthopaedic motocross trauma seen at Middlemore. Over 1 in 5 injuries involving the foot and ankle are multi-traumatic in nature with rider ejection perhaps playing a role. Foot and ankle motocross injuries are frequently high energy and their assessment requires a moderate index of suspicion for other bone injuries in the foot, as well as elsewhere.

ENDS

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