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Understanding and Treating Sports Injuries

By: Joshua Davidson, PT, DPT, SCS, CSCS. Josh is a board certified sports medicine physical therapist and a certified strength and conditioning specialist on staff at the Main Line Health Outpatient Rehab Network at Exton and West Chester

The benefits of sports participation in youth are numerous, ranging from physical, such as improving coordination, developing fitness and decreasing the likelihood of drug use, to psychological, like improved self esteem, academic performance, and even social: developing social interaction skills, independence and self-confidence and learning how to work in a team/group setting. There is even evidence that girls who participate in sports will be less likely to be abused by their boyfriends.

While youth sports are very beneficial, competition for spots on elite teams or for the purpose of landing a college scholarship may come with a price. In fact, according to the National Center for Sports Safety, each year 3.5 million kids under age 15 receive medical care for sports-related injuries, most often the result of overtraining, particularly in youths that specialize in one sport.

With all ages, pediatric to adult, sports-related injuries can affect the joints, bone, muscles, tendons and ligaments, and fall into two categories – acute/traumatic and overuse/chronic. Acute injuries, such as a broken bone, strained muscle or tendon or sprained ligament, happen suddenly from a result of high velocity impact or force. These high velocity injuries are almost impossible to prevent, though there are some acute injuries that can be prevented with targeting strength and conditioning training.

On the other hand, overuse injuries are injuries that result from excessive stresses (repeating the same motion, such as throwing, jumping and running) that act on otherwise normal tissues. Even normal tissues will break down when too much is asked of them. Other causes of overuse injuries include wearing improper or worn out shoes, playing on an unsafe or uneven surface or field, inappropriate increases in training (too soon and too fast), inadequate muscle strength or endurance, using poor technique during training, immature bones, insufficient rest after an injury and poor training or conditioning. Overuse injuries can include stress reactions and stress fractures, bursitis, tendinitis, fasciitis and joint pain.

The onset of symptoms for overuse injuries is typically gradual over time. These people usually do not seek medical attention until performance is affected by pain. There are often several factors that contribute to these injuries, making diagnosis of the exact cause difficult. The good news is, unlike with the acute/traumatic injuries, overuse injuries are absolutely preventable!

The key to minimizing, or hopefully preventing, an overuse injury is to protect the muscles and structures involved as best as possible. Of course a certain amount of repetition is required in certain team sports to develop the strength and skills needed to be successful. Examples of this would be baseball pitchers and catchers, swimmers or gymnasts. What is imperative to remember is that adequate rest is as important as repetition. If rest is insufficient, skill development suffers and the risk for injury increases.

Along with rest, most minor injuries can be managed with the RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) principle, or components of RICE. However, injuries that continue to affect the athlete and the athlete’s performance need to be referred to a physician or clinician who specializes in sports medicine for proper diagnosis and treatment, and to prevent further injury.

A clinician will evaluate the athlete to understand what the problem is and to identify why the problem occurred. Often athletes will make the mistake of returning to play as soon as they feel the pain is manageable without addressing the cause. This could result in more time lost and in a more serious injury. Before an athlete returns to play, he or she should be pain free at rest and while performing sport specific activities while being assessed by a qualified clinician.

A treatment plan may involve physical rehabilitation, which can result in the athlete recovering from their injury, as well as, becoming stronger, more flexible, more powerful and much less likely to suffer the same injury again. As always, prevention remains the best treatment for injuries.

Additionally, a qualified sports medicine clinician can perform a sports screen of an athlete prior to the beginning of each sport season. Based on the information gathered during the screen, a sport-specific strength and conditioning program can be developed that will help put each athlete on the right track for a fun-filled, injury-free sport season.

Make An Appointment
Keep your athlete safe during the season by scheduling an appointment with a Main Line Health doctor for an annual checkup. If pain becomes a problem, make an appointment with a sports medicine physician for treatment before it gets worse.

Posted by Main Line Health on 4/27/2012 1:15:42 PM

Read more articles about: Fitness, Orthopedics, Sports_Medicine, Bryn_Mawr_Rehab