I'm honestly surprised to see so much pushback on this study. Sure there is data missing, but some of the data that would be nice is going to be highly difficult, if not impossible to obtain. The paper does a decent job of what it set out to do, raise concern for what appears to be an alarming trend in spinal cord injuries in a mainstream, yet still relatively niche sport/activity. While we don't have firm data on participation rates in mtb'ing here in BC, I think it's safe to assume those numbers fall below participation rates in hockey. Even if they do not however and we make a big assumption that participation rates are the same, SCI from mtb'ing is still well above what's seen in hockey and other sports.
The study is coming from people in the field of SCIs who were alarmed to see a significant number of people coming into their level 1 trauma centre. If neurologists and orthopedists are concerned with a high number of SCIs being attributed to a specific activity then we should be paying attention to that.
Dec. 2, 2024, 10:17 a.m. - Mark
I'm honestly surprised to see so much pushback on this study. Sure there is data missing, but some of the data that would be nice is going to be highly difficult, if not impossible to obtain. The paper does a decent job of what it set out to do, raise concern for what appears to be an alarming trend in spinal cord injuries in a mainstream, yet still relatively niche sport/activity. While we don't have firm data on participation rates in mtb'ing here in BC, I think it's safe to assume those numbers fall below participation rates in hockey. Even if they do not however and we make a big assumption that participation rates are the same, SCI from mtb'ing is still well above what's seen in hockey and other sports. The study is coming from people in the field of SCIs who were alarmed to see a significant number of people coming into their level 1 trauma centre. If neurologists and orthopedists are concerned with a high number of SCIs being attributed to a specific activity then we should be paying attention to that.