Study Finds Helmet Use Reduces Head Injury Risk

THURSDAY, 20 APRIL 2006

The result of a study made by a Norwegian team of researchers further strengthened the assertion that the use of helmets does minimize the risk of head injuries among skiers and snowboarders. Along with other studies conducted by various organizations, it is now more or less safe to say that the use of helmets is indeed beneficial to skiers and snowboarders rather than harmful. Some critics, on the other hand, claim that using helmets give people a false sense of security and aggravates the risk of having a neck injury because of the helmet's weight.

Dr. Roald Bahr of the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences in Oslo, is the co-author of the said study. He encourages everyone who is into snowboarding and skiing to do as the Olympians do and wear helmets. He said that it does not matter whether you are an amateur or a professional as long as you get your head and neck some protection.

The study which was conducted in the winter of 2002, interviewed some 3,200 injured snowboarders and skiers as well as approximately 3,000 non-injured control group. Their study found 578 head traumas among those injured with almost 150 of them are potentially severe. The team eventually found out that using a helmet reduces the risk of head injuries as much as 60 percent.

Findings of the study of Bahr's team further strengthened what other studies before it has claimed. One of which is the nationwide study made in Sweden from 1985-1986 where the researchers found out that skiers who use helmets were 50 percent less likely to have head injuries than those who didn't. A more recent one was done by the United States' Consumer Product Safety Commission, published in January 1999. It also asserted what the Norwegian and Swedish researchers found out and stressed the risk-reduction aspect of the use of helmets.