To many parents whose kids are involved in sports, sprained ankles, pulled muscles and broken bones are all part of the game.
But experts say many sports injuries can be prevented with some logical precautions.
Advertisement
At a recent meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in San Francisco, doctors discussed the problem of children's sports injuries and how they can be eliminated.
For starters, a young athlete should have a physical exam before the season begins.
"Most doctors encourage a yearly physical for youngsters," says orthopaedist Dr Mary Lloyd Ireland.
"Sometimes high school individuals have been in a recent growth phase. Or, the opposite could be happening - you've got an immature student who is one-third the size of other players. In those cases, you might want to counsel them to think about another sport," Ireland says.
Conditioning exercises and strength training appropriate for the age of the child are also important.
Girls, for instance, often develop kneecap pain when participating in sports that require a lot of running, because of growth patterns that cause their hips to widen.
"Usually, if they have not developed the complementary inside thigh muscle in order to help hold that kneecap more squarely in the groove of the femur bone or thighbone, therein lies the problem," explains Dr. Letha Griffin, a team orthopaedist at Georgia State University.
"If we can get those girls before they are symptomatic and put them in good strengthening programs . . . then we have taken a major step in trying to prevent sports injuries," she adds.
Once kids get involved in sports, regardless of the shape they're in, they are often subjected to practice regimens more suitable for professional athletes, notes Dr Janda, an orthopaedic surgeon at the Institute for Preventative Sports Medicine.
"Probably the number one leading cause of sports injuries in youth is overuse, where student-athletes are trained at an inappropriate level. They're trained like they're Olympic athletes even though they're not, and this leads to overuse injuries in their shoulders and knees and elsewhere in their body," he says.
"There are huge misconceptions in the public right now - that injuries are not preventable, that they are simply part of the deal if kids participate in sports, that they don't have long-term ramifications and that they are not that common anyway," he notes.
But, he adds, "our contention is injuries are far more abundant than they should be."
"The good news, however, is that with more awareness, the vast majority of these are completely preventable," he says.
To many parents whose kids are involved in sports, sprained ankles, pulled muscles and broken bones are all part of the game.
Bookmark with:
What are social bookmarks?