Introduction

I recently read a research article that stimulated my interest to write on the subject. Since my post-graduate days at the United States Sports Academy there has not been much time given to thinking about children’s athletics and sports injury because my children went from their high school athletics to their chosen collegiate sports as their age shifted my interest shifted more toward adult injuries.

From 1986 to 1988 my involvement with the Olympic medical team in South Korea forced me to see these young athletes as adults even though most of the 5,000 Olympic athletes that we treated and attended was a teen. Now that I look back on those days with admiration of the many athletes that were seen and we got to know also remembered is the variety of injuries that most doctors never get a chance to attend.

Startling Statistics

Almost 75 percent of families with children between the ages of five and eighteen and in public education have at least one child who is involved in organized sports, either at school or a community team. This is a good statistic, because for more than a decade this number had slipped as our children became more sedentary. The value of learning to work together, as a unit, building camaraderie, good strong bodies and minds can’t be stressed enough. At the same time there is always lurking in the background the potential for harm from an injury that can occur at anytime.

The pathophysiology of acute sports injuries differs little from that seen in musculoskeletal trauma originating from other sources. With a few extenuating circumstances, the athlete is very motivated and more difficult to manage primarily because of the over powering climate of urgency and the necessity of returning to a supranormal state as quickly as possible.

The psychological aspects of dealing with acute athletic injuries are vastly different from those surrounding trauma from other origins. Both physician and athlete are subject to pressure not usually seen in other circumstances. The physician must not only make immediate appropriate decisions but also must convey the consequences of those decisions in the framework of specific athletic participation.

Parents can be very helpful many times by becoming more active in your child’s sport, injury and rehabilitation if this were the case. Often follow-up, stretching techniques and nutritional suggestions will help speed the recovery.

It is estimated that 3.5 million children under the age of fourteen (14) receive medical treatment for sports related injuries each year and that almost one-third of all injuries incurred during childhood are related to sports activities, with the most common injuries being strains and sprains.

In addition to the health consequences, the financial cost for treating injuries is estimated to be between 3 billion and 4 billion dollars each year. There is another consideration; the time missed out of school can be considerable for many athletes. We had a Tennis player that was outstanding in high school as a patient. He had said that he misses nearly every Friday going out of town to tennis tournaments. The Institute for Preventive Sports Medicine, estimates that each year, there are almost 212 million school days lost attributed to musculoskeletal injuries, the vast majority of which are sports related.

Repetitive Motion Syndrome

Athletics that require a child to move one arm or leg or another body part over and over again over long periods of time can establish a repetitive motion syndrome (RMS). Sports such as Baseball, Tennis, and Archery are good examples of activities that lend themselves to RMS especially in the developing bodies of younger athletes. The body was biomechanically designed to move in a symmetrical manner. Our arms and legs normally move in a counter-motion to each other. This develops muscle tone evenly and in a balanced fashion throughout the body especially the muscles and tissues of the spine. However, often many sports participants to use the dominant arm or leg repeatedly, discouraging symmetrical development in their body as they grow. The tennis player we mentioned had much greater muscle development on the right side of his body, arm, shoulder, trapezius, pectorals, latissmus dorsi, as well as the spinal musculature. The muscle in his low back had an asymmetrical development. He began to have low back pain at the early age of thirteen. He was taken to an Orthopaedist for an exam and a series of radiographs and MRI but everything turned out to be negative. He was told it was probably growing pains by the orthopaedist and not given a return appointment. After about two months of the continual nagging pain when he played, he was brought to our Sports Medicine practice for an exam.

I got to seen this case and happened to be knowledgeable and experienced in this type of injury having just returned from the Olympic experience. The examination was the same as the orthopaedic assessment with the exception of a Manual Muscle Test called Applied Kinesiology (AK). The AK examination revealed a prominent over development of the Quadratus Lumborum. The young man’s father was shown and explained that this over development may be allowing the muscle to pull the vertebrae out of normal position and that was setting up an irritation to the tissues, which causes edema and spasm to develop in the muscles involved when the young athlete was playing. It was recommended that he have eight weeks Chiropractic care with Applied Kinesiology to correct the imbalance that was occurring in the low back musculature as well as the Psoas group, which act to help balance the lumbar group of muscles. A follow up AK examination and the subjective statement by the patient indicated the diagnosis and treatment had been correct.

This is just one example of how a RMS can have an effect on an athlete. There are many others but time and space does not allow me to go into further detail at this time.

Teach Young Athletes to Listen to Pain Signals

Athletes, professional or grade school, place a tremendous amount of stress on their bodies. The running, jumping, falling, and physical contact is a fairly frequent part of many competitive sports tend to result in strains, sprains, and acute injuries. These injuries can sideline an athlete and cause considerable pain, typically for only days, but sometimes months.

The concept of pain should be taught to children as an important part of their athletic training. We know that it is a warning signal to the body that something is wrong and should be corrected. Taking prescriptions or over-the-counter usually affectively mask the warning signals, which mean children will tend to overexert the body part without ever realizing the problem, thus worsening the underlying problem. This is why forward and preventive-thinking coaches, athletes, parents and doctors have come to realize that painkillers are not the answer. Pain killer merely cover up the problem and deceive the player into believing they can do more than they actually should.

Our Role as Sports Medicine Specialist

Whether providing prevention education, biomechanical care, ancillary care, we clearly have a role with young athletes. Time and proper assessment of the injury site was all that was different in the case earlier mentioned. The physician needs to be cognizant to the fact that these are “young” athletes and they have to be taught how to help prevent injuries and how natural intervention strategies work.

About the Author

John Stump is a retired post-graduate school professor and lectures to physicians around the Country on Sports Injury and Acupuncture procedures. John practices in Fairhope, Alabama where he is the Clinic Director of the Integrative Medicine Centre. He writes extensively, having just finished, “A Stroke of Midnight,” Alternative Concepts, 2007, and was a contributing author in the textbook “Electroacupuncture,” Elsevier, 2007. He is now co-authoring an Anatomy textbook for Pierce Publishing Company and writing a chapter for the textbook Energy Medicine: East and West, Elsevier, 2011. He can be contacted at HYPERLINK "mailto:bamashogun@aol.com" bamashogun@aol.com or visit HYPERLINK "http://www.alternative-concepts.com" www.alternative-concepts.com, or HYPERLINK "http://www.baldwincountynow.com" www.baldwincountynow.com