ACL injuries in kids on the rise
/ Courtesy: NBC News
Doctors say they've noticed a growing number of ACL injuries in teens and adolescents over the last 10 years. But there are ways to prevent injuries.
Andrew Timmons is a high school soccer player and currently in the final stages of recovering from an ACL surgery. "I started when I was six. There were two seasons outdoor, so 24 seasons of outdoor plus multiple indoor seasons. We'd have three or four practices, we have two games and our practices are two or three hours each," Timmons said. He did all of that plus run at least two miles with the team at least twice a week.
Dr. David Gray, the Director of Orthopedics at Cook Children's Hospital in Fort Worth, says the problem is that this kind of routine is becoming more and more common in younger athletes. In fact, there's been a 400 percent increase in ACL injuries in teens and adolescents over the last decade. "There is a lot of pressure in the select world to play one sport year 'round and you get a lot of repetitive trauma and use the same muscles over and over and your more prone to injuries in general," Dr. Gray said.
T.O. Souryal is noticing the trend too. As the head team physician for the Dallas Mavericks, he says today's young athletes are overdoing it. "I think it's multifactorial, but primarily, because kids are playing too much...and it's a year round, multi sports, there is never time to rest," Souryal said.
Doctors say the injury is even more serious for younger patients because of issues with the growth plate. So they're coming up with new ways to operate on younger children. Obviously, the hope is to avoid any kind of injury in the first place. "One of the things we'd like to see is children play more than one sport. There are some breaks...that you have different activities so you're using different muscles," Dr. Gray said. "The performance clinics are good. Kids need to learn how to run properly and how to lift weights properly, but just like anything, excess is bad. I think it's always smart to have a break. Your body needs a break, your mind needs a break. Two or three months is a wonderful prescription," Souryal said.
Do you know children who have suffered ACL injuries? Do you think student athletes are over-doing it these days? Leave your thoughts below.
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Information courtesy of NBC News
