We’ve all done it, and if you haven’t yet you will. Sitting there watching your kid play, regardless of the level or sport, and have seen them or one of their teammates get injured. Maybe its not to serious, maybe it is, regardless, in the event that it is your child, are you equipped to ensure that your child is making the right choices or having the right choices made for them? It’s time to learn what every parent should know about sports injures.
In a perfect world your child’s team has a medical professional on their staff, however in reality the likely hood of that is very small. One of the missions here at Youth Sports Med Hub is to empower you as a parent and/or coach to better prepare for these situations. I want to cover 4 main points that will help you better prepare for these scenarios, First aid, referrals, follow up care, and return to play. We will discuss these at the surface level today and go more into depth in the near future.
Initially when an injury happens, some level of “first-aid” is needed, maybe its just help getting up, maybe its splinting an arm and calling an ambulance. Regardless of what it may be there are 2 questions you should always be asking, first, is the person helping your or someone else’s child a medical professional, and second id the adivce they are giving correct? As a parent as well as a Certifed Athletic Trainer i know what i look for, I have a pretty good idea of what is going on right from the start. If you a parent, you know your kid, but you may not know what to do in every situation, and that’s ok! But if a coach is providing that medical advice and doesn’t have any training, it’s important to make sure you advocate for you kid, regardless of their age. Now, its important to let the coach do their job, and not be the parent who is always interfering, but if if comes to a medical situation, you are never in the wrong for being part of that conversation or even taking over the situation, especially in the absence of a medical professional.
Referrals, this one can be tricky, sometimes its hard to tell if you child needs to seek further medical attention after their initial injury, there are many scenarios that can play out. It’s easy to tell you that you should always error on the side of caution, but I’m not naive to the fact that many people have socioeconimical consideration, such as insurance, cost, logistical issues, etc, that may or may not make it easy to seek further medical care. You know your kids better than anyone, and you know if they are likely ok or not, if there is ever any concern of a broken bone, a trip for an X-ray is always worth it as things can remain in pain and get significantly worse. Sometime what seems like an ankle sprain from rolling your ankle might not need extra checks, but maybe if things are getting better. This is more of situational based decision and i could talk for days on each type of injury and what may or may not be the right move. Having said all that, if you have the ability, its never a bad thing to get checked out and ensure that your child is taken care of.
Follow up a care for sports injuries is a bit of a broad term, but mainly what I mean here is if an rehabilitation or follow up appts with Doctors is needed. Again, lots of scenarios, but if you know that an injury requires rehabilitation, you should ensure that you child is doing it, and probably doing extra. This will ensure that they are going to come back stronger from their injury, which will reduce the chance of re-injury or the possibility of injuring other areas of the body because of a deficit. It’s also important to make sure you are getting proper medical clearance before returning to play, as this will reduce the likely hood of the same negative outcome sin the previous sentence. Being an advocate for you child and empowering yourself with these tools can make sure that everything i being done safely, but also in a timely manner, as in many cases kids want to play and get back out there, so sometimes its important to protect themselves from themselves.
Return to play is pretty self explanatory but it may have many layers, simply from getting the wind knocked out of you, all the way to long rehabilitations from significant injuries. Sometimes you just need a minute and your ready to go again, which is totally fine if things check out. Sometimes it takes months to be ready again. Either way ensure the body is ready for what lies ahead, or else re-injury will be apparent. Sometimes return to play timelines can be moved up based on using tape or braces, often there are common injures that can be safe to play through, just ensure you have the correct infomation and those making that decision have the health and wellbeing of you child at the core of their best interests.
Till next time, let us know what you think, and take a minute to sigh up so you know what’s coming next.
Comments