Yale Doc Talks About Gender Gaps In Treating Sports Injuries

NEW HAVEN — Whether it is baseball, swimming, soccer, basketball, tennis — as summer heats up, sports injuries increase. And as Yale Medical Group orthopedic physicians and surgeons know, men and boys suffer different kinds of injuries than women and girls, and therefore each gender must be treated differently.

Every year more than 3.5 million children aged 14 and younger are treated for sports injuries. Yale’s orthopedic experts are available to talk about what every athlete, parent, and doctor should know about the prevention and treatment of these sports injuries.

Among them is Karen Sutton, MD, an expert in these gender-related differences in prevention and treatment. Dr Sutton is herself a former athlete whose research has focused on injuries to women athletes.

“As girls and boys are increasing their participation in sports, the injuries have increased accordingly,” said Dr Sutton in a release. “Now, we tend to see more athletes participating in the same sport year-round as opposed to a different sport each season. Continuously playing the same sport leads to an increase in overuse injuries as well as decreases the opportunity to build muscles through cross training.”

Dr Sutton said girls and young women in particular are four to eight times more prone to anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries.

“An ACL injury can be devastating to an athlete’s soccer or lacrosse season and potentially take six months to one year to return back to sports,” she advised. “Anatomy, hormones, and other differences all play a role in the difference between female and male athletes. Agility training, cross training, weight training, appropriate footwear and playing surface all can help in the prevention of ACL injuries.”

The American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine has started an initiative called the STOP Sports Injuries campaign. It was created to help prevent athletic overuse and trauma injuries in children and adolescents.

To diminish injuries, coaches and parents should encourage preparticipation physical exams every year, teach young athletes the appropriate way to warm up properly before and activity, instruct them on the appropriate cool-down routine, demonstrate proper training and technique. as well as making sure young athletes increase training gradually.

Cross training and avoiding playing a sport continuously through all four seasons also decreases the incidence of injuries.

“It is important to spread the message to parents and coaches that in order to keep their young athletes on the field,” Dr Sutton added, “they incorporate injury prevention strategies into practices and game day routines.”