High School Sports Injuries

Teens that are engaged in school sports activities have a higher overall rate of injuries than those that don’t, which should come as no surprise. The forms of injuries that affect each athlete varies by the activities that they’re participating in and their stage of physical development. Bones, muscles, and tendons grow at different rates, especially in teens, making them more prone to specific kinds of injuries.

The Most Common High School Athletics Injuries

High School athletes experience injuries that are broken into three classifications, each representing a different degree of severity. These three classifications include acute and overuse injuries that involve the bones, tendons, muscles, and ligaments, and catastrophic injuries that involve the spinal cord and brain.

Overuse Injuries

Teenage athletes have a tendency to overexert themselves in a drive to excel, or simply out of inexperience with recognizing their body’s limitations. Overuse tends to occur in them frequently as a result. These injuries can affect the soft tissues, growth plates, and bones in the body when they haven’t had the opportunity to rest and recover between exertion. Different forms of injury are related to different sports, such as elbow injuries in pitchers in baseball, swimming tends to cause injuries in the shoulders, and wrists and elbows are common injuries in gymnasts.

Stress Fractures

These injuries are particularly common among athletes of High School age. As their bones are passing through a series of remodeling phases occasionally the regrowth doesn’t occur as quickly as the older bones break down, resulting in stress fractures from weak bone.

Acute Injuries

These are the first of two types of severe injuries that can occur to athletes in their teenage years. These can occur as the result of collisions between players, between players and objects, or falls. Contusions, strains, fractures, and sprains are all forms of acute injuries that can occur.

Concussions

When injuries involving the head occur, the results can be deeply concerning, and this is the case with concussions. When the head is suddenly jarred the brain can move suddenly within the skull, impacting the bone and causing a concussions. Concussions can range in severity from mild, requiring nothing but ice and rest to recover, to severe resulting in the swelling of the brain.

If you have a young athlete in your family that’s actively engaged in their school sports program, then related injuries are sure to be a part of your family’s experience. Every yearthousands of young athletes around the world experience injuries in the pursuit of their passion, and that’s why your family needs the expertise of people like Dr. Luc Tuerling. Space Coast Orthopedics has been helping patients of all ages engage in their favorite athletic past-times by providing them excellent care when injuries occur. If your family lives in the Merrit Island, FL area and are actively engaged in a sports program, be certain to contact them for an appointment today.