Safety

Despite increased helmet use, the number of snow-sports-related traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) keeps rising, prompting calls by experts to implement a variety of targeted prevention strategies, with a special focus on educating parents about the protective value of helmets and the role modeling effect the parent's use has on their child's decision to wear a helmet.

Nearly half of sports-related facial fractures among children occur in baseball and softball, says a new study in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, many of which could be prevented if players wore face shields while fielding.

Protecting your skin from skin cancer isn't just important in the hot summer sun. The risk is high in the winter as well, especially around snow or at a higher elevation. As part of the American Academy of Dermatology's SPOT Skin Cancer® initiative, here are some tips on skin cancer prevention and detection from professional skier and three-time Olympic medalist Julia Mancuso.

A revolutionary new product called Shockbox^TM triggers an alarm on a smart-phone whenever an athlete suffered a blow to the head hard enough to cause possible concussion so the player can be immediately removed from the game or practice for a sideline assessment.

Ever wonder if media exposure can have a positive effect on sports safety? One has to look no further than to what happened after the deaths of two celebrities in skiing accidents in Europe and North America during the winter of 2008-9, the first, a German politician, wearing a ski helmet, who suffered a traumatic brain injury but survived a collision with a helmet-less mother of four on a ski slope in Austria on New Year's Day 2009 in which the woman died; the second, involving actress Natasha Richardson, who died after a traumatic head injury while skiing without a helmet on a beginner's slope in Quebec in March 2009.

Taking a family ski vacation over Christmas break? MomsTeam busts the 12 most common misconceptions about skiing safety and equipment.

Did you know that traumatic brain injury accounts for 50% to 88% of skiing and snowboarding fatalities and that the risk of head injury and of loss of consciousness increases for skiers and snowboarders not wearing a helmet when they fall.  Your child or teen may not think wearing a helmet is cool, but it could save their life.

The best way to avoid common snowboarding and skiing injuries such as skier's thumb and wrist fractures to make sure that you¹ve learned to fall correctly and to stick to slopes that are appropriate for your skill level.