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Study takes a look at winter sports injuries

Rehab Private Practice Alert, December 14, 2005

With football, basketball, and soccer converging with the popular winter sports of skiing, snowboarding, and hockey, this is the time of year when more and more injuries occur among school and recreational athletes, according the California Physical Therapy Association (CPTA).

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 4.3 million sports- and recreation-related injuries are treated each year in hospital emergency rooms. These injuries occur among all population groups and account for more ER visits annually than injuries involving motor vehicle occupants (3.5 million).

CPTA vice president Christopher M. Powers, PhD, PT, an Associate Professor at the University of Southern California, is leading a multi-faceted study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health to examine the cause of knee injuries in women athletes. Female soccer players, in particular, suffer knee ligament injuries at a rate three-to-eight times greater than their male counterparts. Through the study, Powers and other researchers hope to better understand at what age potentially harmful movement patterns appear, so that adequate prevention strategies can be applied at the right time to mitigate injury risk.

"If we can understand how physical training can change injury-causing movement patterns, then it is possible that more efficient and effective injury-prevention programs can be developed to save athletes from further pain," says Powers.

The CPTA encourages athletes who participate in the most accident-prone activities, such as football, basketball, skiing, and snowboarding, to see a physical therapist who can prescribe a conditioning and treatment program specifically geared to the athletes and their chosen sports.

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