Sports Eye Injuries A Model for Prevention

Abstract

The leadership role that physicians can assume in combating sports-related injuries is clearly demonstrated by the experience in ice hockey. One of the most efficient protective devices in sport to date is the hockey face mask. With the increase in the sport's popularity, particularly in schools and colleges, eye injuries to ice hockey players rose dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s. Working through the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM), ophthalmologists in Canada and the United States collected data documenting the problem, directed development of performance standards for hockey face masks, successfully lobbied hockey organizations to require that players wear face masks meeting the standards, and educated players about the importance of face masks.^1,2 This work was funded, for the most part, by volunteers whose goal was to make ice hockey safer without changing its fast action or basic style. Now, on