Comparison of soccer shin guards in preventing tibla fracture

摘要

In soccer, a majority of injuries occur to the lower extremity, with tibia fracture being one of the most severe. Boden and Garrett (1997) and Cattermole at al. (1996) have shown that a majority of tibia fractures in soccer are minimally displaced, suggesting that the impact was slightly above the fracture tloerance of bone. If shin guards can reduce this impact to below this fracture tolerance, then these observations suggest that improvements made to shin guard design may prevent some of these fractures from occurring. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the impact characteristics of a number of different types of shin guards in order to evaluate their capability of protecting against tibia fracture in soccer. In particular, we were interested in determining if specific material or physical differences in design influence the protective behavior of a shin guard.