Stupid helmet question ...

In message
Ace wrote:

On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 14:12:06 +0000, Alun Evans
wrote:

On Wed 17 Jan '07 at 12:38 Mike Clark wrote:

Have any resorts collected data on proportions of skiers using helmets
and also the proportions of skiers injured in accidents and whether or
not they were wearing a helmet?

I personally know two head trauma incidents (one with helmet, fine; other,
unconscious), though they were both snow-boarders, which does seem to lend
itself to head-plants.

I've never worn a helmet for skiing or cycling, and am sceptical about
their efficacy. I work on the basis that I've fallen loads of time,
including head plants, and never damaged my head, so the sort of
impact I'd like to protect against is much greater than those I've
experienced. Unfortunately, in the case of massive impact, the level
of protection provided by cycle and ski helmets is woefully
inadequate, as far as I can tell, so I'll either wear a proper helmet,
such as I use(d) for motorcycling, or not bother.

Anyhoo, your sample size is clearly too small to draw conclusions from
- I've personally witnessed dozens of ski and board accidents wear the
head has made contact with sme other surface or object and never seen
any major trauma - doesn't mean it doesn't happen, just that in all of
the cases I've witnessed the wearing of a helmet would have provided
no benefit.

I don't want to turn this into a helmet-wars argument, such as used to
come around periodically on the cycling newsgroups (probably still do,
but I've not been active there for years). I would certainly never try
to persuade anyone that they're not a good idea, as long as no-one
tells me that I should wear one;-)


I've now found a study published in JAMA (requires registration)

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/295/8/919

from a Norwegian study by Sulheim et al 2006 which makes for some
interesting reading since they did attempt to look for confounding
influences in their study.

They concluded overall that helmets did provide protection, but their
data also reveals other factors that were also associated with
increased accident and injury rates. For example they found that for
serious head injuries that snow boarders were more likely to be injured
than alpine skiers who in turn were more likely to be injured than
telemark skiers. Age and ability also seemed to be important in that
teenage and also less experienced people were more likely to be injured.
For example those aged 13-20 made up 25.6% of their control sample
(randomly selected as every 10th person queuing at the bottom lift
stations), but accounted for 42.2% of their severe head injuries. In
contrast those over 20 (64.1%) accounted for 43.5% of severe head
injuries.

The other thing that the study threw up was that those who regarded
themselves as risk takers were more likely to wear a helmet than those
who regarded themselves as cautious skiers.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
" || _`\,_ |__\ \ | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"