In many cases, injuries and pain are due to contact and collision that are innate in most action games. Sports injuries can occur during basketball, football, tennis, and soccer games in children, youth, and adult sports activities.
Kinds of Sports Injuries
Orthopedic injuries
Fractures are orthopedic injuries. They are damages mainly related to the muscle and skeletal systems. Fractures are breaks or ruptures to the bones, joints, ligaments, muscles, or tendons. A fracture may happen suddenly during high impact sports like boxing, where fracture of the nose bridge is common. Fractures of the bones of the arms and legs account for six percent of all sports injuries.
Fractures may also develop gradually over time, mostly involving the bones of the legs and feet. Stress fractures are common in ballet dancers, long-distance runners, and the elderly athletes due to already thinning bones.
People can avoid fractures by observing all safety instructions and practicing proper training methods, together with adequate calcium supplement in the diet.
Ligaments and soft tissue injuries
Sprained ankles, Achilles tendinitis, and tennis elbow account for one third of all sports injuries. Ligaments and soft tissue injuries can be partial or complete tear of a ligament—a strong band of tissue that connects bones to one another and stabilizes the joints. The area around the affected joint becomes swollen and painful, often in the ankles, wrists, fingers, and knees. In some cases, these injuries can happen together with fractures.
Sprained ankles, Achilles tendinitis, and tennis elbow usually are results of repeated stresses. Treatment includes rest, taking painkillers, massage and, in some severe cases, physical therapy or surgical repair of the damaged tendons or nerves.
Head injuries
A head or brain injury is cause by contact sports like boxing, martial arts, rugby, and football. Severe head injuries are results of high velocity sports like bicycle racing, skiing, and gymnastics. Such sport injuries are traumatic and can disrupt the normal functions of the brain. As the possibility of skull fracture is high, immediate medical attention is necessary.
This blow to the head can cause loss of consciousness and may affect balance, comprehension, coordination, hearing, memory, and vision. Severe cases of head injuries may result in longer period of unconsciousness, coma that may eventually lead to death.
Prevention of head injuries includes wearing proper protective headgear for contact sports, and a good knowledge of the road condition for high velocity sports.
Specific organ injuries
Many organ injuries are results of direct trauma in collision and contact sports. Specific organ injuries include eye injuries (hit by a ball), ruptured spleen (kick in the abdomen), cervical disk injuries (dislocation of cervical spine), heart injury (hit by a baseball or hockey puck), and lung injury (decompression illness in scuba divers and blunt trauma to the chest).
Of all the sports, basketball and baseball cause more than 40,000 eye injuries each year, followed by water sports and racquetball sports. However, the sudden deaths in sports activities are, more often than not, results of trauma to the heart.
A blunt trauma can cause an aortic rupture and injury to the coronary arteries. In addition to cardiac contusion, a blunt trauma to the chest may also cause a pulmonary contusion. Ribs can puncture the pleural sac that surrounds the lungs, and then if air gets into the pleural cavity the lungs can collapse.
Reproductive organ injuries are results of a direct blow to the abdomen. An athlete when hit hard in the abdomen can suffer a lacerated spleen, which can damage the liver if it occurs in the upper right quadrant of the abdomen.
Cervical spine injuries are common in athletes playing contact sports like rugby, and American football. During a scrum engagement, the front row exerts and impacts a combined force equivalent to 1.5 tons to the slightly flexed cervical spine of the opposition.
Prevention Tips
Most sports injuries are preventable. Tips and advices from sports professionals and doctors on how to improve endurance, flexibility, performance, and strength are helpful. Simulate all defense and offense actions before each competition.
Contact and collision are common in sports activities. The best method to prevent or reduce the occurrence of injury and pain is to use proper sports outfit and equipment, make use of correct techniques, apply proper methods of contact and collision, and disqualify athletes who abuse the rules.
Sports injuries are common problems and are major setbacks for athletes, but with treatment, physical therapy, and behavior modification an athlete will be back in action in no time.
Sources:
- Concepts of Athletic Training by Ronald P. Pfeiffer and Brent C. Mangus
- Sports Emergency Care by Robb S. Rehberg
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