The Risks of Mountain Bike Riding

In a microcosm study of mountain bike injuries Zachary Ashwell, a fourth year medical student who has a background in engineering, took statistics of injuries suffered by individuals who rode mountain bikes. An avid biker himself he knows the hazards and pitfalls that a rider can experience especially at Whistler Mountain Bike Park in Canada. He studied some 898 case reports from the Whistler Health Care Centre 2009 mountain bike season. The specific cases occurred between May 16 and Oct. 12 of 2009. He found that the typical injury was a 26-year-old male who suffered the injury between 1 and 4 p.m. Ashwell discovered that 86 per cent of the patients were male, that August is the worst month for injuries, that 12 per cent of the injuries suffered were considered potentially threatening to life, limb or function, and that more than 75 per cent of the bones broken in the bike park were upper body bones.The most severe injuries involved internal bleeding or internal organ injury, spinal cord injury or traumatic brain injury. Obviously the idea is to have as much safety gear as possible worn by the rider. Of 24 cases where safety equipment was noted only one was documented as not wearing armor. The other 23 were documented as wearing a variety of protective devices beyond a helmet, including knee and elbow pads, full body protective suits and neck guards. At the risk of divulging a possible business idea this writer suggests that someone should invent a kind of ”airbag garment” to protect the mountain bike rider when he falls. As stated above one of the more severe injuries that can occur to bike riders when they fall is Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). When that occurs and the initial emergency treatment has passed the patient will need the best physical therapy solution to cope with any limb movement disability issue he has. The TUTOR system is in the forefront of such physical therapy products and has been developed to assist patients to get the most intensive exercises so that the limb can return to its former mobility stage (and the patient can again ride his bike??) The devices (HANDTUTOR, ARMTUTOR, LEGTUTOR, 3DTUTOR) are sophisticated, ergonomic and comfortable gloves and braces and have become a key system in neuromuscular rehabilitation and physical therapy for interactive rehabilitation exercise. The TUTORs are connected to exclusive software that implement an impairment based program with augmented feedback and encourage motor learning through intensive active exercises. The physical therapist records and evaluates the progress made by the patient and designs a customized exercise program for that patient. The TUTOR system, fully certified by the FDA and CE is now part of the rehabilitation program of leading U.S. and foreign hospitals and can be used in clinics in their home through the use of tele-rehabilitation. See WWW.MEDITOUCH.CO.IL for more information.