Biomechanical Effect of In-line Skating Wrist Guards on the Prevention of Wrist Fracture

A biomechanical study was conducted in this study to investigate if in-line skating wrist guards can effectively reduce the impact forces so as to protect the wrist from fracture. The forearm specimens with and without wrist guards were dropped using a specially designed sled to simulate the impact on the wrist while falling. A force plate was used to measure the total impact force on the dropping weight whereas a load cell was attached to the proximal end of the specimen and used to quantify the impact transmitted through the wrist joint. From the nondestructive tests, mean peak force measured from a force plate showed no difference between the guarded and unguarded groups whereas mean impulse of the guarded group was significantly greater than that of the unguarded group (p