Wrist guards and wrist and elbow injury in snowboarders

To the Editor: Snowboarding is increasing in popularity, but Australian snowboarders have been shown to have 2.4 times as many fractures as skiers, with 35% of upper limb injuries being fractures.1 The most common site of injury is the wrist, accounting for 21.6% of all snowboarding injuries.2 It has been suggested that the use of wrist guards could reduce the risk of injury, particularly as snowboarding injuries tend to be impactive rather than torsional.3,4 However, concern has been raised that use of wrist guards will redistribute the impact of the force to more proximal areas of the arm, causing elbow injuries.5