Written By David Greisman
The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat. And the knees and the shoulders and the heads. For all the pleasures of athletic competition, there are also the pains, strains, aches and breaks that often accompany them.
Millions suffer sports injuries every year: approximately 3.5 million kids 14 and younger, and another 2 million high school athletes, according to STOPSportsInjuries.org.
Nationwide, there are numerous organizations, from advocacy groups to hospitals, working to educate schools, coaches, parents and kids about the prevention and treatment of sports injuries.
Locally, the Carroll County school system has undertaken efforts not only to provide on-the-spot treatment when sports injuries occur, but also to keep such injuries from happening.
“Most sports injuries are caused by some sort of traumatic event, but they don’t necessarily have to be traumatic,” said Dr. Yatin Patel, an orthopedic surgeon at Carroll Hospital Center in Westminster. “A lot of it depends on what sport it is.
“In contact sports like football, hockey, or even, to some extent, basketball, there’s usually a traumatic event, whether it be through hitting another player or hitting the ground,” Patel said. “The non-traumatic injuries are usually caused by some sort of pivoting or cutting [sudden changes in direction] that athletes tend to do on their own. They don’t necessarily have to result from contact with someone.”
Beth Kates is a certified athletic trainer who is in charge of sports medicine outreach for the National Center for Sports Safety, which is based in Birmingham, Ala. According to her, the most common sports injuries are, first and foremost, sprained ankles, followed in no particular order by deep bruises; separated shoulders; sprained fingers; rotator cuff problems; and various knee injuries, including many to the anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL.
Ankle injuries do not usually land a patient in Carroll Hospital Center.
“We really don’t see a lot of the injuries that occurr on the field or during a game,” said Patel. “Many schools have trainers treating these kids for basic things like sprains. When they come to our doors, it’s usually failed treatment or something that isn’t so obvious and you need surgery to correct it.”
Damage to the ACL is the most common sports injury that brings an athlete to Patel and his colleagues, he said.
“Most of the time the ACL falls into the non-contact kind of injury, whether it’s a pivot or a cut the wrong way,” he said. “Most kids may feel some kind of pop or pain. We also see a lot of shoulder injuries from overuse, especially among individuals who throw a lot, whether it’s a baseball or a football.”
Doctors gear treatment to the type of injury.
“With chronic overuse injuries, such as shoulder sprains or shoulder tendonitis, you want to start off as conservative as possible,” Patel said. “Sometimes athletes need to be shut down, stopped from playing any sports, and really treated symptomatically with therapy and rehab until we get them back to a point where they can do their activities without any pain.”
But some injuries will require surgery, said Patel, whether it is to help a student athlete get back on the field sooner, or even to keep patients from being in pain or developing arthritis 15 to 20 years later.
Kates, the athletic trainer, said it is essential that injuries get treated. “If you damage soft tissue, you’ll get scars on the inside,” she said. “If you have scars on your muscles, it’s always going to be tight there, or it’s going to tear again. Bones will heal improperly. It may not bother you until you get older. We hear people say, ÔI had this and I never did anything about it’ as they get to be grandparents.”
The warning applies even more critically to head injuries, which have been in the news more often in the past few years, as leagues and teams increase their awareness of the consequences of concussions. Kates said that people should err on the side of caution, and should do so even if a player is not knocked unconscious.
“People tend to ignore little dings on the head, and they think that if you didn’t get knocked out it’s not serious,” she said. “Research is showing that the younger you are, the worse it is. And these little dings are cumulative. It’s getting to be a big problem. There’s something called second impact syndrome. Somebody gets hit, the brain becomes bruised, and they ignore it and get hit again. If you have a bruise on your arm and you keep jamming your finger into it, it’s going to get worse, not better.
“We’re trying to make people understand. The one body that you have will last you a lot longer,” Kates said. “It’s about quality of life.”
So the experts preach proper prevention.
“Stay hydrated,” said Kates. “If you’re dehydrated, it’s like trying to run a car with no water in it.”
As for stretching, “People still try to stretch the way they did back in the Ô50s, where you sit down, lean over and try to touch your toes,” she said. “Dynamic stretching is the way to go; it starts preparing your body for movements in whatever sport you’re going to do.”
Patel expands: “Stretching definitely loosens the muscles. When a muscle is tight and stiff, you’re not as flexible. Athletes need flexibility when they’re playing any type of sport. The bones really take less of a load, and it’s really the muscles doing the work. If you have good stretches and good flexibility, that really prevents certain types of injuries, especially cutting, pivoting and throwing injuries.”
Patel also recommends that children get a physical before starting any sports, and he underscored the importance of good nutrition.
Football, basketball, baseball and soccer cause the most sports injuries. But no matter the sport, the Carroll County school system has a system in place to prevent and treat athletic injuries.
One sports rehabilitation company works with six of the county’s eight high schools, according to James Rodriguez, the school system’s supervisor of athletics. Another company works with another school, and the eighth school has a private athletic trainer.
“They do a tremendous job in all aspects of the prevention and care of athletic injuries,”said Rodriguez. “They educate the coaches, parents, student-athletes: ÔHere are the things you really need to do to prepare yourself and here’s what to avoid so you’re not at risk for injury.’ ”
Coaches are also required to take a course on the prevention of and care for athletic injuries. Since schools often have multiple teams playing multiple sports in different places, the trainers remain at the schools from about 30 minutes before school ends until the last practice or game is over.
“When an injury does take place, they quickly see an individual and assess the situation,”said Rodriguez. “If they feel it’s something that needs more medical care, they make a recommendation.
“We’ve been very fortunate,” said Rodriguez. “Not all counties have full-time athletic trainers. These individuals specialize in the care and prevention of athletic injuries. And because of their experience and their level of competence, it is advantageous for us as a system to prevent what may very well be a minor injury from becoming a big injury.”
