Each year, thousands of kids hurt on trampolines

Trampoline-related injuries are on the rise once again among children and adolescents, new study findings show.

Within the last decade, the number of U.S. children seen in emergency departments for trampoline injuries jumped to nearly 75,000 annually in 2001-2002, up from some 41,000 per year in the period 1990-1995.

The findings are being reported on Monday in Washington, DC, during the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.

It seems "trampolines are more popular now than ever," said study author Dr. James G. Linakis.

When the pediatric emergency physician at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, was begged by his own children to buy a trampoline, he said no on safety grounds.

But he wanted to gain more objective information, Linakis told Reuters Health.

He and his colleagues looked at National Electronic Injury Surveillance system data on emergency room services provided by a sample of US hospitals.

The team found that 74,696 visits per year to the emergency department in 2001 and 2002 were for trampoline-related injuries, up from 41,600 visits per year from 1990 to 1995, they report.

Most (91 percent) of the injuries occurred at the child's home, and half of the injuries occurred to children below the age of 9.

In most cases, children suffered a fracture or dislocation. Other injuries included lacerations, concussion and internal injuries, according to Linakis and his colleagues.

What's more, each year 2,128 injuries were so serious they required that the patient be hospitalized or transferred to another facility. The same was true of only 1,400 injuries per year in the earlier period.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics' latest policy statement, released in 1999 by the AAP's Committee on Injury and Poison Prevention and Committee on Sports Medicine and Fitness, "trampolines should never be used in the home environment, in routine physical education classes, or in outdoor playgrounds."

Yet, "either the message is not getting out in the first place or people aren't hearing it," said Linakis, who is also a professor at Brown Medical School.

"What the American Academy of Pediatrics said in 1999 still holds, trampolines are not safe in homes," Linakis said, regardless of whether they are used inside the home or outside.

Linakis said he was met with "raised eyebrows" among his own medical colleagues when he told them about the number of trampoline-related injuries sustained each year by children. "Even if you doubt," he urged skeptics, "at least think twice about how safe these things are."