Date of Presentation
5-2-2024 12:00 AM
College
Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine
Poster Abstract
This project’s focus is to investigate if playing contact versus non-contact sports at a young age leads to more sports related injuries and to identify which factors correlate with increased injury rate in order to develop the most effective prevention and treatment methods. Data was collected through a survey including questions that delve deeper to quantify the amount of strain being put on the youth athlete’s body such as hours played a week, level of competitiveness, weeks played in a year, contact versus non-contact sport, and number of sports played. The following set of questions then addressed the actual injury by considering which sport caused it, the location of the injury, length of recovery, recovery methods, and if reinjury occurred. Prior research states that even though exercise has positive implications on health, youth athletes have a greater prevalence of sports injury specifically musculoskeletal injuries since they are still developing. In conclusion, males experienced a greater number of injuries during a contact sport, while females experienced a greater number of injuries during a non-contact sport. Overall, an increase in the number of seasons played in a year and number of training sessions per week resulted in more injuries. In the future, it would be ideal if this data could help create guidelines for training youth athletes to prevent injuries by raising awareness of which factors lead to a significant increase in injuries.
Keywords
sports, youth sports, athletic injuries, youth, athletes, adolescents, incidence, sports medicine
Disciplines
Community Health and Preventive Medicine | Medicine and Health Sciences | Musculoskeletal System | Orthopedics | Pediatrics | Public Health Education and Promotion | Sports Medicine
Document Type
Poster
Included in
Community Health and Preventive Medicine Commons, Musculoskeletal System Commons, Orthopedics Commons, Pediatrics Commons, Public Health Education and Promotion Commons, Sports Medicine Commons
Investigating the Factors That Lead to Sports Related Injuries in Children
This project’s focus is to investigate if playing contact versus non-contact sports at a young age leads to more sports related injuries and to identify which factors correlate with increased injury rate in order to develop the most effective prevention and treatment methods. Data was collected through a survey including questions that delve deeper to quantify the amount of strain being put on the youth athlete’s body such as hours played a week, level of competitiveness, weeks played in a year, contact versus non-contact sport, and number of sports played. The following set of questions then addressed the actual injury by considering which sport caused it, the location of the injury, length of recovery, recovery methods, and if reinjury occurred. Prior research states that even though exercise has positive implications on health, youth athletes have a greater prevalence of sports injury specifically musculoskeletal injuries since they are still developing. In conclusion, males experienced a greater number of injuries during a contact sport, while females experienced a greater number of injuries during a non-contact sport. Overall, an increase in the number of seasons played in a year and number of training sessions per week resulted in more injuries. In the future, it would be ideal if this data could help create guidelines for training youth athletes to prevent injuries by raising awareness of which factors lead to a significant increase in injuries.