A new study in the USA has found that pickleball-related eye injuries have increased at an alarming rate over the past 4 years as the sport continues to grow in popularity.
Eye protection is not currently mandated for casual or professional play.
Establishing standardized guidelines for eye protection is being recommended to reduce the risk of ocular injuries among players.
According to the cross-sectional study published in JAMA Ophthalmology, drawing data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System between 2005 and 2024, ocular injuries related to the sport increased by about 405 injuries per year between 2021 and 2024.
During the whole study period (2005–2024), there were 3,112 pickleball-related ocular injuries; 1,262 of these occurred in 2024 alone.
The study was conducted by the MD trio of Corey R. Lacher, Irene Koc and Jonathan C. Tsui.
The data didn’t explicitly note that patients were not wearing protective eyewear, but mostly support that there was no eye protection, and those that mentioned glasses described injuries from the glasses themselves.
The study also found that there were more pickleball-related ocular injuries among patients aged 50 years or older than among patients younger than 50 years.
Severe eye injuries included retinal detachment, orbital fracture, globe trauma, and hyphema. Mechanisms of injury included direct hit by a pickleball, direct hit by a paddle, and falls.
Pickleball is one of the fastest growing sports worldwide, and also in Cambodia, with numerous pickleball arenas mushrooming in various cities, especially in Phnom Penh.
The game was created in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, at the summer home of Joel Pritchard, who later served in the United States Congress and as Washington’s lieutenant governor.
Pritchard and two of his friends, Barney McCallum and Bill Bell, are credited with devising the game and establishing the rules.
It was not until recently that the sport has seen a boom in the number of players taking up the sport.
The 2023 report by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), released in February 2024, stated that pickleball grew 223.5% over three years in the United States alone.
While the USA still has the highest number of players, it is followed by Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Malaysia.
The top five countries with the fastest growing number of players are India, Thailand, Venezuela, China, and the Philippines.
