Sports injuries
By sports injuries or sports-related complaints, we mean complaints that occur mainly during or after sports, due to overuse or improper strain. It is a diverse group that includes all kinds of complaints. You can divide sports injuries into acute (sudden onset) and chronic (long-term complaints). The largest group involves chronic complaints, which are complaints that arise slowly and gradually get worse. Chronic injuries usually occur because the structure in question (bone or tendon) is overloaded over a prolonged period of time. The majority of sports injuries in children occur around the major growth spurt (during puberty).
Acute injury
An acute injury occurs suddenly and produces pain that is very easy to localise; redness, swelling or difficulty and (localised) pain with movement. Think, for example, of spraining an ankle (inversion trauma) or a muscle tear. Treating an acute injury should be done as soon as possible to limit the damage and recovery time. What you can already do yourself is the following:
RICE stands for:
- Rest: Give the injured body part a rest, so let your child stop playing sports (temporarily).
- Ice: Use a cold pack or hold your child's injured body part under cold running water to reduce pain (not to reduce swelling, as this is actually a good function of the body).
- Compression: giving pressure, e.g. by wrapping a bandage around it. We can also apply (medical) tape to your child.
- Elevation: Elevating the injured body part.
Chronic injury
A chronic injury comes on slowly. The pain is less clearly identifiable (diffuse) and there is usually no swelling or discolouration. Often, your child can name the exercises and movements during which the pain occurs. It is important to recognise these injuries at an early stage so that they can be treated in time. Often, it is then enough to simply adjust the way your child trains or loads.
We roughly distinguish 3 stages of a chronic injury:
1. The (pain) complaints occur after sport
2: The (pain) complaints occur during exercise and remain present after exercise
3: The (pain) symptoms are continuously present
Examples of sports injuries: Ankle dislocation (sprain) sometimes with permanent ankle instability, knee complaints (Jumpers Knee, Osgood Schlatter, PFPS, Sinding Larson Johansson), Achilles tendon complaints (including sever), hamstring complaints, low back complaints, hypermobility complaints (see also heading 'orthopaedic disorders').
Don't wait too long
In the early stages, it often happens that the pain is overlooked, ignored or waited for improvement. However, it is precisely important to recognise the symptoms at an early stage and treat them if necessary. Treatment of a chronic injury varies depending on the stage the injury is at. In stage 1, it is usually enough to adjust the mode of training to obtain a more effective or less taxing workout. In stage 2 and 3, the load needs to be further adjusted (e.g. intensity or frequency) so that the muscle or joint is less loaded. In addition, it may make sense to strengthen certain muscle groups, make the walking or running pattern more efficient or adapt specific sports techniques. The paediatric physiotherapist looks at what may be causing the symptoms and treats with the aim of recovering from the injury. In addition, the paediatric physiotherapist gives advice on how to prevent the injury in the future.