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Many products and services are subject to governmental regulation because injury prevention is a major area of public health. Athletes are at risk for injury and are also subject to rules. Sports injuries are influenced by physical forces encountered in games. Softball is responsible for the most sports- related emergency room visits in the US. Base sliding is responsible for 71 percent of softball injuries in recreational games, which include fractures and ligament damage. These resulted in high costs to employers and softball organizations and disability for participants. Impractical solutions to the sliding problem included outlawing sliding, providing instruction, and switching to recessed bases. Factors such as players' indecision, desire to impress, alcohol consumption, and poor physical condition were not addressed. The effect on the incidence of injury of using quick-release bases, which would give way on player impact, was compared with that of regular bases in a series of 1,260 softball games. Players were aged 18 to 55 years and played in one of four leagues, based on skill. There were 45 sliding injuries using stationary bases, but only 2 injuries with break-away bases. In both cases, the bases did not give way. Of the 45 injuries, 43 involved the leading foot or hand, including 24 ankles injuries. The medical cost of the 45 injuries was $55,050, while that for the ankle fracture and ankle sprain resulting from break-away bases was $700. Break-away bases did not interfere with play in the games. Results in a further 1,035 games played only with break-away bases were similar. The study suggests that use of break-away bases should be mandatory in recreational softball leagues. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Many different problems of the shoulder are associated with recurrent dislocation or subluxation of the shoulder joint. A common surgical method of restoring the shoulder is the Bankart repair. This report presents both x-ray images of the shoulder joint and photographs of cross-sections taken through the shoulder joint of cadavers to illustrate the nature of subluxation and the restorative processes of the Bankart shoulder repair. Although the method does not precisely restore the shoulder to its pre-injury anatomy, it does preserve more of the joint's anatomy than other surgical techniques.

ABSTRACT: In a previous retrospective study, base sliding was found to be responsible for 71% of recreational softball injuries. As most injuries occurred following rapid deceleration impact against stationary bases, quick-release (breakaway) bases were evaluated as a means to modify this mechanism of injury. Six hundred thirty-three softball games were played on breakaway-base fields and 627 games were played on stationary-base fields. Forty-five sliding injuries (7%) occurred on the stationary-base diamonds and only two sliding injuries (

Responds to comments made on the author's article published in the 1988 edition of the periodical 'The Journal of the American Medical Association,' which documented ways of preventing sliding injuries in baseball.