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Repetitive Injuries - Too Much, Too Soon?
Category: General Sports Injuries
Jul 23, 2006
There are two kinds of sports injuries: acute traumatic and chronic or overuse. Sports where overuse injuries are most common include baseball, softball, gymnastics, swimming, and running.
Chronic or overuse injuries are stress fractures (tiny cracks in a bone's surface), tendinitis (inflammation of the tendon caused by repetitive stretching), bursitis (inflammation of a bursa, which reduces friction as between a tendon and a bone), and epiphysitis or apophytis (growth plate overload resulting in soft tissue tears and stress fractures).
Overuse injuries are associated with three sets of activities: overhead (including throwing); running and jumping; and gripping.
Sports requiring repetitive overhead activities - such as baseball, tennis and swimming - are typically associated with injuries sustained to the shoulder, such as rotator cuff tendinitis. "Little Leaguer's Shoulder," which occurs when the growth plate is overstressed, can cause pain and disability.
Injuries to the hip, knee, ankle, and foot are common in basketball, soccer and volleyball, due to the stress related to the impact of running and jumping on the lower extremities.
The forearm and wrist are common sites for overuse injuries in sports requiring gripping, such as tennis, golf, and gymnastics. "Tennis elbow" or "golfer's elbow" are both forms of tendinitis. Gymnasts are vulnerable to repetitive loading associated with tumbling and bar work, which can injure the growth plate of the wrists. Young female gymnasts are four times more likely to develop spondylolysis, a stress fracture in the spine that can lead to displacement and slipping of one vertebral body over the other.
Youths are prone to repetitive injuries due to bone softness and the relative tightness of ligaments and tendons during the growth spurt, which in girls starts approximately at age 10 and for boys at 12. These go away after the growth spurt ends. Watch for pain in the knee, wrist and shoulder.
RICE - rest, ice, compression and elevation - is the industry standard for treatment of repetitive injuries (which won't always show up on X-rays) as well as bruises, strains and sprains. Jeff Woodrich, a physical therapist with Buffalo Rehab Group, suggests listening to the child when trying to assess injuries, especially when they are under the age of 13. Also, don't ask your child to receive the same care as pro athletes, who often undergo procedures that are risky and sometimes not very effective.
Always seek medical care for acute injuries.