Nose is Most Prone to Injury

Obesity in America is among high concern of many of its citizens. Because of this, Precautionary actions such as physical fitness activities are on the rise. Many Americans have begun taking part in team sports. The most popular team sports are soccer, baseball, softball, and basketball. Because of this rise in physical fitness, injuries related to sports have subsequently also been increasing. Because of the prominent location of the nose, that is of the most common occurrence in sports related injuries. Because of its location and its functional and cosmetic importance, the evaluation and management of nasal injuries presents a challenge to head and neck surgeons, as well as primary care physicians and emergency department staff. A study was conducted to review the characteristics of nasal injuries in a series of patients who had been treated by the author of “Characteristics of nasal injuries incurred during sports activities: Analysis of 91 patients,” Dr. Rob Cannon.

It is generally accepted that nasal bone fracture is the most common of all facial bone fractures and these injuries have been found to account for about 10% of all sports-related injuries. In a prospective study of 140 patients with facial fractures incurred during an athletic event, Maladière et al reported that 13.3% had a facial bone fracture; of this group, the nasal bone was involved in 15.6% of cases. In a survey of facial plastic surgeons, Perkins et al found that 21% of facial fractures and 29% of nasal fractures had been experienced by patients aged 17 years or younger who had been engaging in a sports-related activity. This is the age group where most people will be taking acts in team sports, during high school there are a high number of athletes, bringing in the most number of injuries.

In a table created by the document, a study with 91 patients showed that 83 of those nasal injuries (91.2%) occurred during a team-sport event. 54 injuries (59.3%) occurred during an organized sporting event as opposed to recreational play. 40 injuries (44.0%) occurred during a game. 35 injuries (38.5%) occurred during a high school or college event, in which there is a high level of skill and competitive effort.  Only 12 injuries (13.2%) occurred during a contact sport like football. This shows that you don’t have to participate in a contact sport to get injured. The competitive nature of humans is what creates the risk for injuries. Anyone and everyone who plays a sport that has some level of competitiveness, and that can drive someone to get hurt or hurt somebody else, and since it was organized play rather than recreational play, we can tell that there was something to win or lose at stake, which raises the level of competitiveness, consequently rising the risk of injury. 32 cases needed to have surgery performed, but almost all of them were able to return to their sport after about 6 weeks.
Most doctors can tell quickly if a nose is broken or not, based on the shape of it, if there is a C shaped inward dent (like shown below), that is a dead giveaway that it is broken, but they still decide to use x-rays and other scans to make sure that there is nothing else wrong with the patients face.

Along with nasal fractures, some patients developed other injuries as well. The most common injury to come along with a nose fracture is a concussion. A concussion is an injury that causes trauma to the head. Symptoms of a concussion include dizziness, inability to remember, inability to balance, headache, poor eye sight, and others. With a concussion alone you must wait one week of being symptom free in order to return to physical activities. Along with a concussion, one can break other bones, or even damage the soft tissue around the injured area. This can be found using the x-rays and other scans and treated accordingly. Finally, facial injuries other than fractures, septal injuries, and contusions are not common, but they can occur, so a careful initial head and neck examination is important

Most of the injuries were made during organized play, but was not done with illegal play. This means that all the play was allowed and unintentional. Only .24% had been done illegally, or against the rules. This made the author conclude that nasal fracture injuries and the injuries that come along with it are inadvertent, and thus unable to be avoided. While playing any organized sports game, certain risks are entailed and the player should be aware of these before they decide to continue to play in the sport.  The fact that this type of injury is unavoidable and done usually accidentally during legal play is probably what makes it so common amongst sports related injuries.

After injury, and especially after surgery, which implies a more significant and serious injury, a patient may need or choose to wear a splint, shield, or other type of protective device when resuming his or her sport or activity (like the one below.) Wearing such protection can lessen the chance of reinjuring the nose, especially during the fragile time of repair/ recovery of the initial injury. Like any injury, a second injury or re-damaging that area becomes more prone and reoccurrence of the injury can increase, so with that said extra caution is advised to anyone who experience a nasal fracture.

"Concussion- Overview." WebMD- Better Information, Better Help. WebMD, 10 June 2010. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <http://www.webmd.com/brain/tc/traumatic-brain-injury-concussion-overview>.

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