Youth Sports Injury; Common Sense Needs to Prevail

Children playing sports such as soccer, football, basketball, baseball, running, dancing and gymnastics are suffering musculoskeletal injuries at unprecedented rates.

Some alarming statistics from Safe Kids, USA: 3.5 million children age 14 and younger are treated for sports injuries each year, nearly half of all injuries to middle school and high school athletes are overuse injuries, and almost 40% of sports related injuries treated at hopsital ER departments are aged 5 to 14 years old.

Youth sports have become big business. Training intensity is high for individual and team sports, with many athletes training 10-20 hours per week. Many adolescent athletes concentrate on one sport and do not cross train or change body loading environments. There has been an increase in youth injuries that require surgery. Overuse injuries such as stress fractures and little league shoulder and osteochondritis dissecans can cause growth disturbances or permanent joint injury. ACL surgeries, elbow surgery and shoulder surgery are far too common place. Many of these injuries can be prevented by allowing minor injuries time to heal (keep youths out of practice and competition for as long as it takes for their bodies to heal), limit participation in any one sport to 8 months or less. If common sense does not prevail our youth athletes will continue to suffer injuries that may have detrimental long term consequences to their health. This post was inspired by an article in AAOS Now entitled The Changing Landscape of Youth Sports Injuries.