Health & Safety

The National Athletic Trainers' Association has re-released an official statement regarding the calling of crown of the helmet violations in an effort to ensure sports safety at every level of football participation. Re-issuance of the statement by the NATA comes in the wake of at least two deaths of high school football players from catastrophic cervical spine injuries in 2013.

Nearly a third of patients at two leading sports concussion clinics reported having previously suffered a concussion which went undiagnosed, says a new study, putting them at increased risk of longer recovery from concussion, the cumulative effects of concussive injury, and of second impact syndrome.

Cheerleading:carries the highest rate of catastrophic injury in sports, accounts for fully two-thirds (66%) of all catastrophic injuries in female athletes has experienced a sharp rise in the number of emergency room visits since 1980, with cheerleaders ten times more likely to sustain concussions in practice than in competition

Achy feet are a common problem, especially among athletes and anyone who spends a lot of time on their toes. However, there is a fine line between tired feet and a minor injury, and it is important to recognize when an injury has occurred in order to avoid aggravating the problem.

While physical therapists cannot help heal an athlete's brain after concussion, they can be an important member of the concussion management team, helping in a variety of ways to ensure that athletes only return to play once their brains have fully healed.

Limiting or eliminating contact practices in football would result in an 18% to 40% reduction in head impacts respectively over the course of a high school football season, reports a new study,  which urges policymakers to proceed with caution in imposing such limits.

Pitching from a mound causes increased stress on the shoulder and elbow of adolescent pitchers as compared with that from flat ground finds a new study, which recommends that pitchers begin their season or return from injury or surgery by starting their pitching progression on flat ground before progressing to the mound.

A growing number of studies challenge the conventional wisdom that inadequate athlete concussion knowledge is the principal barrier to increased concussion symptom reporting.  Because educating youth about the dangers of concussion is unlikely to improve concussion reporting, they say other ways need to be found to increase reporting, among them being to enlist coaches to help create an environment where athletes feel safe in reporting.

This week's announcement that USA Swimming has commissioned an "independent review" of its safe sport program is just the latest in a series of chess moves by this U.S. Olympic Committee national governing body in the run-up to a meeting next week with the staff of Congressman George Miller, the California Democrat and ranking minority member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce who is investigating how the organization responds to sexual abuse allegations.

The recent move by the Princeton (NJ) school district to require headgear for all middle-school soccer, field hockey and lacrosse players has generated controversy. MomsTEAM's sports concussion neuropsychologists has concerns about the effectiveness of such headgear and says the focus needs to be on education, training, rules enforcement, and hiring more athletic trainers.