Injuries are an unfortunate reality of sports. Know what to do if your child is injured on the field.
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Each year, more and more kids are participating in sports. Due to increased participation, sports injuries are the second leading cause of emergency department visits for children and adolescents.
Injury categories
There are three main types of sports injuries:
- Acute injuries, which are related to a trauma like a sprain ankle or concussion
- Overuse injuries, which are injuries caused by repetitive use of certain body part – an example would be little leaguer's shoulder.
- Reinjury, which describes aggravating a previous injury often caused by returning to a sport before the injury had healed completely or properly
Parent triage
When your child suffers an injury, first access the situation. Some sports teams have medics, sports medicine trainers or first aid personnel available. If a professional is not available, determine if the injury resulted in obvious swelling, deformity, loss of function, bleeding, unconsciousness or possible broken bone. When the injury meets one of those criteria, seek medical attention at an ER or urgent care location.
When it's not serious
If your little leaguer catches a pop fly with his forearm instead of his glove or if your karate student take a kick to the thigh, home remedies will probably do the trick.
In these cases, used the RICE method:
- Rest
- Ice
- Compression
- Elevation
Follow orders
You athlete may be eager to return to competition, but it's important to follow doctors orders when is comes to the length of the healing process. By doing so, you'll prevent reinjury or further, more serious injury.
When an injury takes your little athlete out of the game, the Sports Medicine professionals at Medical Center Arlington can help. We are the official hospital of the Texas Rangers baseball team and our staff is equipped to hand orthopedic care with our state-of-the-art techniques. To request a phsycian referral, please call 1-855-868-6262.
Related Posts:
Injury Prevention in the Youth Pitcher
What is Little Leaguer's Shoulder?
