One of Hunterdon Orthopaedic spine specialists Dr. Thomas St. John co-authored a research study on thoracic and lumbar fractures associated with skiing and snowboarding injuries. According to the article posted on Pubmed.gov “the incidence of spinal fractures varies form 1% to 17% in alpine skiing injuries.” The purpose of the study is to address the patterns of spinal fractures related with these sports and to determine occurrence of various fracture groups and subgroups as well as to determine whether the fracture patterns vary between skiing and snowboarding injuries.

In summary the findings of this study is that “thoracic and lumbar fractures caused by skiing and snowboarding are mainly stable injuries, composed of either compression fractures, mostly simple compression injuries, or isolated transverse and spinous process fractures. Neurological injury was not seen in this study.”

For the complete details of the study please visit http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22700890/