Education can help parents understand risks in sports

North America/United States/10.10.2018/Source: www.dailyitem.com.

Sports, of any kind and at any level, come with inherent risks of injury. No helmet or pad or repetitive training exercise can compensate for the unknown.

Despite this, sports are as popular as ever. According to the National Federal of High School Associations, more high school students participated in a scholastic sport during the 2017-18 school year than ever before.

Those kids take to the fields, pools and courts with the understanding the next play could be their last. No one thinks about it, but that is the reality.

The reality is that football, despite increases in concussion awareness, safer helmets and increased coaching tools to teach proper blocking and tackling, is a dangerous sport. It always will be.

So are soccer and basketball, where collisions are common place and knee ligaments can give out without warning. So is lacrosse, with players swinging sticks, and ice hockey with its checks. In baseball and softball, hard balls are thrown at high speed in all directions.

What we are learning as sports medicine advances is that these sports can become safer. As Tyler Hanson, athletic trainer for Evangelical Community Hospital and the Miller Center and part of Bloomsburg University’s concussion clinic said, we are just touching the surface of concussions.

“Ten to 20 years ago, the ACL was a career-ending injury,” Hanson said. But through years of study and medical advances, athletes are often back in less than a year. “What we learned then is that we needed more days of rest, more strengthening. We’re coming full circle now with concussions. We have to lower the impact rate, allow more time for rest.”

Today, the NFL, the NCAA and the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association are all offering teaching tools to youth football programs in an attempt to make the game safer. The thought process makes sense: Teach kids the proper technique and coaches how to diagnose specific injuries, you can make the declining — numbers-wise — game of football safer.

Participation in collision sports like football, ice hockey and lacrosse must come with the understanding that an injury could occur at any moment.

Evaluating those risks needs to be part of conversations parents have with their children. Weighing all the options, both positive and negative, should be part of an honest dialogue.

There is little doubt sports represent positive life-building experiences. They can build confidence, camaraderie, life skills and friendships that will carry far off the field.

Do those positives outweigh the risks? That is the question we all need to answer.

Source of the notice: http://www.dailyitem.com/opinion/education-can-help-parents-understand-risks-in-sports/article_164951ce-dfe0-5f16-9a91-5ae0229f005f.html