Injury fact sheets: ankle sprain

Ankle sprains are one of the most common injuries seen on the sporting field, in physio practices and in our hospitals with approximately 275 people presenting to ED each day in Australia.(1) They are the most common athletic injury world-wide,(3,4) representing up to 56% of all injuries in some sports(2) and hugely prevalent in netball, basketball, volleyball all codes of football.(1,2) In the US there are an estimated 2 million ankle sprains every year and high school soccer and basketball they amass USD1.1 billion in treatment costs annually.(2) If those statistics aren’t alarming enough there is a 74% chance that if you’ve rolled your ankle it will happen again and almost 50% of people have ongoing problems with their ankle after spraining it.