To Your Health
September, 2009 (Vol. 03, Issue 09) |
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2. Focus on prevention. Whether providing just prevention education, structural adjustments or ancillary care, your chiropractor has a role to play with young athletes. Chiropractors will typically take more time to assess the injury site, provide appropriate care, and most importantly, recommend or teach how to prevent future injuries.
Chiropractors can provide extremity adjusting, stretching and rehabilitation, and even recommend nutritional protocols to assist in performance and injury recovery.
The larger role the chiropractor can play involves developing a schedule of care for your child that's not pain- or relief-based only. Your child will definitely benefit from regular spinal and extremity examinations and screenings. Rather then waiting for an injury to take place, why not introduce your young athlete to a proven prevention model that will keep them pain-free and in the game? After all, that's what it's all about: keeping them safe and able to participate in the activities they most enjoy.
Sports-Related Injuries: Inside the Numbers
It is estimated that 3.5 million children under the age of 14 receive medical treatment for sports 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. Let's take a quick look inside the numbers:
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Football 350,000+ - Basketball 300,000+
- Soccer 140,000+
- Baseball 120,000+
- Swimming 43,000+
- Wrestling 33,500+
- Gymnastics 26,500+
- Hockey 21,000+
- Track and Field 17,000+
In addition to the health consequences, the financial costs for treating school injuries are estimated to be between $3 billion and $4 billion a year. In addition, the impact of childhood sports injuries on the number of school days missed can be significant. The Institute for Preventative Sports Medicine estimates that each year, there are almost 212 million school days missed by students due to musculoskeletal injuries, the vast majority of which are sports-related injuries.
Concussion Dangers
While many concussions are mild and will only cause minor, short-term discomfort, the Mayo Clinic (www.mayoclinic.com) recommends seeking immediate medical attention if your child has suffered a blow to the head that is accompanied by any of the following symptoms:
- Loss of consciousness
- Repeated vomiting
- Seizure (convulsion)
- Headache that gets worse over time
- Changes in behavior, including irritability or difficulty waking
- Changes in physical coordination, including stumbling or clumsiness
- Confusion
- Slurred speech
- Lasting or recurrent dizziness
- Blood or fluid discharge from the nose or ears
- A cut that won't stop bleeding after you've applied pressure for 10 minutes
Claudia Anrig, DC, practices in Fresno, Calif., and is on the board of directors of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association, an organization that can answer your questions regarding the value of chiropractic care during and after pregnancy.
