Gun Hill Youth Football and Cheerleading Alliance: Rebelmania: Parents Page - The Best Armor Against Sports Injuries
Parents Page - The Best Armor Against Sports InjuriesTHE BEST ARMOR AGAINST KIDS' SPORTS INJURIES IS AN INFORMED PARENT
by Mickey Rathbun
Ten-year-old Sallie is the fastest runner on her Little League team. But while sliding into second base one day, she catches her foot on the base and her look of excitement turns to one of agony. She has sprained her ankle so severely that she can't play the rest of the season.
Unfortunately, Sallie isn't alone. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, nearly 1.3 million children age 14 and under were treated for sports-related injuries in hospital emergency rooms in 1996. Maybe your child was one of those kids or will be this year.
There is no such thing as an injury-free sport. But common injuries can be prevented. For example, if Sallie's ball field had been equipped with breakaway bases, there's a good chance she would not have sprained her ankle.
Here are some safety tips from sports-medicine experts that can help keep your young athlete off the injured list.
THE FIRST STEP: CONDITIONING
Get your child a sports physical exam. Before your child starts an athletic program, she should have a sports physical one that includes testing for strength, flexibility, and endurance. Have your family doctor check your child's overall health for conditions that might affect her ability to play sports. Discuss previous injuries. Go over your family medical history especially any record of heart attacks in men under 50. That can help the doctor spot potential heart problems, which are rare but can be fatal.
Make sure your child is properly conditioned before the program begins. Dr. Eric Small, director of the Sports Medicine Center for Young Athletes at Blythedale Children's Hospital, in Valhalla, N.Y., says conditioning-related injuries occur most often at the beginning of a season, when kids are more likely to be out of shape. A month before the season begins, kids should run or get some kind of general physical activity once or twice a week. They should work up to three or four times a week by the time team workouts start.
Know your child's nonverbal signals. Youngsters are notoriously uncommunicative about their bodies, so you need to observe your kids closely. While a player might be too distracted during a game to feel his pain, parents and coaches should notice whether he is favoring a leg or has residual soreness after the game. Some athletes downplay injuries to avoid being benched.
COACHING FOR SAFETY
Check that your child's sports program includes proper skills instruction. Of the five major conditioning components endurance, strength, flexibility, speed, and skill skill is the most directly related to avoiding injuries, according to Dr. John F. Duff, an orthopedic surgeon in Danvers, Massachusetts.
For example, a child needs proper skills for handling a lacrosse stick to catch the ball without hitting a teammate or injuring a shoulder. Make sure your child's program teaches technique in preseason clinics and throughout the season.
Make sure coaches include warm-ups and cool-downs in your child's sports routine. A proper warm-up before playing is important for kids of all ages, says Duff. It is critical during growth spurts, when children's muscles and tendons are tight.
Small suggests five minutes of mild aerobic exercise, such as jumping jacks or running in place, as well as sport- specific exercises, such as tossing a basketball, followed by gentle stretching of leg, torso, arm, and neck muscles.
The practice or game should be followed by about four minutes of a free-playing exercise, like catch, for younger kids, and stretching, for older kids.
Insist upon well-trained coaches. Be sure the coach has been trained in basic sports fitness and conditioning and knows basic first aid. He should also have an emergency medical plan.
There is a national set of coaching standards, and parents should urge that coaches meet those standards.
Teach and enforce rules. Many rules of play are designed to prevent injuries. Prohibitions against spearing in football or high-sticking in hockey aim to protect players but they must be enforced by coaches and refs. Modifications to the rules, such as forbidding checking in hockey, should be considered if the skill level is low.
In addition, league rules regarding the length of the season are devised to maintain children's physical and psychological well-being. Make sure your child's coach follows these rules.
EQUIPMENT
Outfit your child properly. Face masks, mouth guards, shin guards, and other protective gear greatly reduce the likelihood and severity of injuries. Find out what protective equipment is required and make sure your child uses it during every practice and game. If protective equipment is not already provided, buy it yourself.
Protect the eyes. Approximately 30 percent of eye injuries among children under the age of 16 are sports related, and 90 percent of those are preventable. Eye protection, in the form of a face mask or goggles, should be worn for all impact sports, according to Dr. Paul Vinger, a clinical professor of ophthalmology at Tufts Medical School, in Boston. Anytime you have a ball going fast, or fingers flying, you're going to have eye injuries, says Vinger. Eye protection is relatively cheap.
For kids who wear glasses, Vinger ad vises parents to obtain protective eyewear from a competent eye-care professional who is aware of sports-safety standards. Prescription glasses should be fitted with shatterproof lenses and sports frames that hold the lenses firmly in place.
Be sure the shoe fits. Improper footwear is a major cause of injuries to feet, knees, and ankles. Your child needs footwear that is appropriate for the sports she plays. Avoid hand-me-downs, which are likely to fit poorly and have worn-down treads. And don't send your child out to play in shoes that have not been broken in.
Keep clothing and equipment clean and in good condition. Check straps, buckles, and laces frequently for wear. Don't let your child leave dirty sports clothes in her locker at school.
Says Duff: I've seen a football team laid low by a staph infection because of unsanitary clothing worn by one youngster.
PLAYING CONDITIONS
Make sure facilities are well maintained. Duff suggests checking for these conditions:
· Playing fields should be free of ruts or bare spots. Benches and equipment should be placed so that players won't run into them. Padded goalposts and rubberized sideline markers should be used.
· Track-and-field surfaces should be smooth and clear of obstructions. Hurdles should be in good repair and balanced. Long-jump pits should be the proper depth, with the right quality of evenly raked sand. For pole vaulting, there should be a safe, well-placed landing pad, secure vaulting box, and poles in good condition. Javelin, discus, and shot-put landing areas should be a safe distance from other athletes and spectators.
· Indoor arenas should have clean, dry, non- slippery floors. Spectators should be kept well away from playing area.
· Ice skating surfaces should have no ruts, and the rink boards should be in good repair.
· Gymnastic equipment should be tested before each event or practice. It should be firmly secured and padded. There should be plenty of mats on the floor.
· Wrestling mats should be in good repair and clean. (Contagious skin conditions can be a problem.) There should be plenty of room for the wrestlers to land when they fall out-of-bounds.
· Swimming pools must have proper chlorine and pH levels, and the water must be deep enough for safe entry for swimming and diving events. The apron should be free of obstructions.
Prepare for weather conditions. When the temperature exceeds 85 degrees and humidity is greater than 70 percent, there is a danger of heat exhaustion or heatstroke. On such days, your child should drink at least two glasses of water before playing sports, and then drink fluids every 15 to 20 minutes throughout the activity. Kids under age 10 should drink until their thirst is satisfied, then drink two to four ounces more. Kids over age 10 should drink until their thirst is satisfied, then drink an additional four to eight ounces.
Sunscreen SPF level 15 should be applied before your child goes outside and reapplied if the child is sweating.
For children at intensive preseason football or soccer practices, play should be scheduled for early or late in the day. For football, loose, white clothing should be worn during drills; helmets and other heavy, protective equipment should be used only during contact drills.
In cold weather, make sure your child is properly dressed in warm, insulating layers, with his head well-covered, if permitted. Teach your child to recognize the warning signs of frostbite, such as tingling in fingers, toes, and face.
If your child is playing outdoor field sports in wet weather, he should wear shoes with extra traction, such as screw-in cleats.
Also, use a nonabsorbent soccer ball in wet weather; leather balls become waterlogged, making heading dangerous.
Teach your child what to do if he is caught in an electrical storm. He should stay away from open fields, trees, and bodies of water. If possible, get children indoors or inside a car until the storm passes. If caught out in the open, he should lie down and curl into a ball.
No matter what precautions you take, your child may still get hurt. Injuries, unfortunately, are part of the games. But, with these guidelines and common sense, most injuries can be prevented. And you can rest easier while your young athletes are out on the field.
PLAY BALL - SAFELY
It's that time of year again. Almost three million kids around the world are gearing up to play baseball and softball. But before your youngster grabs his or her bat and ball and heads for the ballpark, you might want to check out these safety products, which can prevent or minimize injuries.
· Softer baseballs or softballs, which have a polyurethane-foam core instead of cork or rubber, can lessen the severity of the nearly 50,000 ball-impact injuries to the head and face each year, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Little League baseball allows the use of these balls in games.
· Face guards prevent oral, dental, and ocular injuries. They are made of clear plastic or metal that attaches to the sides of a batting helmet and covers the chin to the tip of the nose.
· The use of breakaway bases would prevent about 98 percent of all softball and baseball sliding injuries, according to Dr. David H. Janda, M.D., director of the Institute for Preventive Sports Medicine, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It costs only $400 to equip a field with breakaway bases. A breakaway base (as shown in the photo), is snapped into grommets. The grommets are attached to an anchored rubber mat that holds the base in place unless dislodged by a sliding runner.
BICYCLE HELMETS SAVE LIVES
Approximately 400,000 children are treated each year for bike injuries, and nearly 400 die, mostly from head-related trauma. Despite this chilling statistic, only 15 percent of U.S. bicyclists under age 14 wear helmets, according to the National Safe Kids Campaign.
You can set a good example by wearing helmets when you bike. Getting your child to wear her helmet is step one; making sure it fits properly is step two.
A bike helmet that doesn't fit properly will do little to protect your child's head from serious injury. Use the following guidelines for fitting protective headgear:
· The helmet should fit snugly.
· The front edge of the helmet should rest less than an inch above the eyebrows.
· The chin strap should be tight, centered, and always fastened when riding or playing.
· Never use a cracked helmet.
OVERUSE INJURIES: ON THE RISE AMONG KIDS
Twelve-year-old Brian stopped playing basketball last winter so that he could work on his soccer year-round. He plays indoors and out, 12 months a year. He practices every day.
Lately, though, Brian has been complaining that his knee hurts. He limped off the field of his last game. The pain has steadily worsened, so his parents take him to the doctor.
The doctor makes a diagnosis: osteochondritis dissecans, better known as teenager's knee. While Brian has been pounding up and down the soccer field for the past 12 months, the growth cartilage at the bottom of his thighbone has been grinding against the top of the shinbone, causing a stress fracture of the joint's surface cartilage.
Teenager's knee is an overuse injury. Unlike acute injuries, which are caused by a single, severe trauma, overuse injuries result from repetitive micro-trauma to bones or joints caused by doing the same activity whether it's running, throwing a baseball, or flexing the lower back over and over again.
Overuse injuries, such as teenager's knee, Little League elbow, swimmer's shoulder, and gymnast's back, are becoming much more common than in the past. Sports-medicine experts attribute this rise to the growth of organized sports for kids, early specialization, and sports with year-round seasons. Children are especially vulnerable to overuse injuries because their bones are growing.
Parents and coaches should be on the lookout for a pattern of symptoms that typically occurs as an overuse injury develops. First, a child will have sore muscles for a few hours after a workout. Next, muscle pain will persist into the following morning. Later, a child will have pain toward the end of a workout, and then throughout the entire workout. Finally, the pain will occur with routine motions.
When symptoms of an overuse injury are present, it is best to have your child see a doctor with training in sports medicine, preferably in pediatric sports medicine.
To prevent overuse injuries, Dr. Eric Small, a children's sports-medicine specialist, recommends that kids spend no more than five days a week playing any one sport. He strongly advises against year-round specialization in a single sport. Says Small: Overuse injuries are a lot less likely for two-sport kids.