SITEMSH

Societe Internationale de Traumatologie et Medicine des Sports d’Hiver
Societa Internazionale di Traumatologia e Medicina degli Sport Invernali
Internationale Gesellschaft fur Ski-Traumatologie Und Wintersportmedizin
International Society for Skiing Safety and Winter Sports Medicine

SITEMSH is the oldest European Scientific Society that is concerned with the study of winter sports pathologies, their treatment and prevention.

The history of SITEMSH started 50 years ago in the 50’s when a group of experts coming from the Alpine Countries (Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland) began to observe, collect and study the injuries coming from ski practice. They decided to meet every two years on behalf of a new Society that they named SITEMSH.

The 1st SITEMSH meeting took place in 1954 in Chambery-Couchevel in France. Ligaments lesions of the knee, together with tibia fracture, were the most frequent ski injuries. Knee surgery was not so effective in these years and the typical knee lesion meant no more ski activity and chronic invalidity .

The history of SITEMSH goes parallel to the evolution of ski injuries.

In the next 20 years, the evolution of equipment and especially the safety bindings brought a big improvement in tibia fracture prevention that resulted to an 80% decrease of this kind of injuries. Furthermore the improvement in ski design, the lower release settings, the improved boot design and fitting, the better equipment maintenance, the increasing skier experience and the improved trail grooming resulted to a 50% decline in all injuries.

However the knee joint is still the most involved in ski injuries. The severity of the lesions has not changed but fortunately knee arthroscopic surgery made a huge improvement in the same period. Lower leg fractures are firmly under 10%, but have not disappeared and new unusual types of fractures have appeared in the last years. Upper limb and many anatomic sectors are now more involved due to the increase of snowboard injuries, collisions and average speed on slopes.

Knee injuries remain a serious unsolved problem difficult to accept after 50 years of incredible technologic improvement in every field. Probably today the best prevention comes from safety campaigns on media and press that were proved to be successful in many countries like Sweden, Spain and France.

Deeper studies on this problem must be the primary goal of SITEMSH and ISSS (International Society for Skiing Safety), the only two Societies concerned with ski injuries prevention

In 1990 Andorra and in 1993 Spain were accepted as new members of the Society. Recently Greece (2006), Scotland (2007) and Chile (2007) joined SITEMSH. 27 Congresses (and 1 extra meeting) have been organized.