The numbers don’t lie.
New data is pointing to higher rates of injury from organized sports. Indeed, when compared to unorganized play the conclusion is clear. Get back to the old-fashioned playground to reduce injury rates.
An estimated 27 million U.S. youths between the ages of 6 and 18 participate in team sports and 60 million participate in some form of organized athletics. And many of these youth athletes are picking a main sport to focus on, despite data showing that sport specialization is an independent risk factor for injury.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) and the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) recently presented new study findings that explain the risks associated with youth sports specialization during a recent media webcast, “Fall Forecast: Settling the Youth Sports Safety Score” that took place at AAOS in its Orthopaedic Learning Center.
“Overuse injuries in children can have a lifetime effect on their game and quality of life,” event moderator Charles Bush-Joseph, MD, immediate past president of AOSSM, professor at Rush University Medical Center and associate director of the Rush Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Fellowship Program said during the broadcast.
“As more athletes under the age of 12 focus on just one sport and year-round training, coaches, parents and athletes need to encourage youth to think about participating in [a] variety of activities to prevent injuries. While sports participation has many benefits, including the development of strong bones and muscles, children who do specialize are often more likely to develop overuse injuries because of their repetitive movements, are stressed and may even consider quitting a sport and losing the benefits.”
Sex-Based Differences
The first new study findings presented during the webcast came from “Sex Based Differences in Common Sports Injuries” which was published in the July issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Elizabeth Matzkin, M.D., AAOS board member-at-large, chief of Women’s Sports Medicine and director of the Sports Medicine Fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, assistant professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Cordelia Carter, M.D., director of the NYU-Langone Health Women’s Sports Center and program director, Pediatric Sports Medicine at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospitals, lead authors of the review article, discussed the different risk factors for sport-related injuries male and female athletes experience particularly at the youth level.
Their article specifically looked at stress fracture, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear, shoulder instability, concussion and femoroacetabular (hip) impingement. They found that females have a higher risk of stress fracture, secondary to a relative energy deficiency in sport compared to their male counterparts. Although the absolute number of ACL injuries per year is higher in male youth athletes, females have a two to eight times increased risk when playing similar sports.
In addition, females are less likely to return to sports after ACL injury. Research has also shown that in sports such as soccer, basketball and lacrosse, female athletes also have a higher incidence of concussion than their male counterparts.
According to Carter, “Anatomic and physiological characteristics such as skeletal structure, muscle mass, ligament flexibility and hormone levels differ between the sexes and may contribute to variations in injury risk.”
For example, she said, one possible reason for higher concussion rates among female athletes is less muscle mass in the neck which could offer less protection from head snaps and concussions. Symptom complaints are often different based on sex as well.
She said, “The best way to avoid or treat a sports-related injury in a male may be different for a female. Understanding the sex-based differences can help orthopaedic surgeons be better equipped to care for patients with these injuries and improve their treatment outcomes.”
