Advice from Yale Medicine – Keep activities safe, fun, and injury-free this summer
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For many kids, summer means camp, outdoor play, and summer sports leagues. In fact, staying active is important to their health. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention recommends children and adolescents ages 6 to 17 years should get 60 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily; yet, 24% of them don’t get enough activity.
However, getting hurt—as kids often do—can sideline children from the healthy activity they need to thrive. Each year, more than 2.6 million children up to the age of 19 show up in emergency rooms with a sports- or recreation-related injury. Here are tips on avoiding common injuries so your child can enjoy summer to the fullest.
One-third of childhood injuries occur while playing sports. Though sports and recreation are fun, it’s important to know that close to a third of childhood injuries happen during such activities. The most common injuries are sprains and strains, followed by fractures. While injuries can happen in any sport, they are more common in competitive team sports such as football, basketball, soccer, ice hockey, baseball and softball. Also risky can be activities involving repetitive movements, such as competitive cheerleading, dance and gymnastics.
Playing several sports lowers injury risk. Specialization in one sport at an early age puts kids at a higher risk for getting hurt, especially for overuse injuries such as stress fractures and acute injuries such as ACL tears. “The problem is that when children do the same thing, like pitch a baseball—over and over again—and don’t play other sports, they continually stress the same body part,” says David Frumberg, MD, Yale Medicine orthopedic surgeon and assistant professor of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at Yale School of Medicine. “Five or 10 years ago, coaches didn’t realize this was such a problem. But now it’s a public health issue.” One smart idea, he suggests, is establishing pitch limits, for example, to protect kids’ shoulders and elbows from overuse injury.
Small children get overuse injuries, too. “One of my biggest concerns is that when an activity causes pain for very young children, they are going to stop enjoying it,” says Dr. Frumberg. They may lose confidence and the desire to do that activity. Sometimes they think their body is broken—and then that becomes a psychological concern.”
Injuries are more likely to happen at practices. Sixty-two percent of organized sports-related injuries happen during practice, not during a game or competition. Sports practices and off-season training camps involve lots of drills, done over and over. One study of more than 1,200 athletes ages 8 to 18 showed that kids who train extensively in a single sport were 70 percent more likely to experience overuse injuries (and these can require up to six months of recovery time). Kids did better if they followed this guideline: The number of hours per week spent in training for a single sport should be lower than the child’s age.
Starting a new sport can increase risk for injury. A child’s highest risk of being injured is when he or she is just starting a new sport, says Dr. Frumberg. Make sure your child understands the rules of the sport, has appropriate gear and equipment, warms up before playing and takes breaks if he or she is tired or in pain. Your child should be in good physical condition when starting any sport.
Sports should be fun. Just having a sports injury puts a child at risk for getting hurt again. “Our job is to prevent injuries from cascading into a never-ending cycle,” says Dr. Frumberg. The goal is to treat young patients well the first time to reduce their risk of later consequences, he adds. “So, if young patients have an injury, I’ll take them out of sports until it heals. I’ll also talk to them about how it happened—perhaps they are not in the correct age group, or there is some underlying risk factor, such as a limb length discrepancy.”
Bottom line: Kids should be active and have fun. Preparing for activities by warming up, having the right gear, knowing the rules of the game, and not specializing too soon can help kids avoid injuries – and, therefore, be able to enjoy playing all summer long.
To find a specialist near you, click here. Or visit Yale Medicine Orthopedics After Hours (walk-ins welcome): 260 Long Ridge Rd., Stamford, CT (M-F, 5-8 pm; Sat. 8 am-12pm).