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Playing It Safe: Avoid Spring Sports Injuries

As spring and warm weather approach, school athletic tryouts begin and kids head for the playgrounds and parks to play their favorite spring sports. But with 2.6 million children in hospitals each year due to sports-related injuries, parents may want to sideline their kids for a pre-game safety talk before letting them take the field.

Even though sports injuries are the number one cause for emergency room visits among kids, two-thirds of those injuries can be prevented by playing by the rules and using the right protective gear. Most sports-related hospital visits are due to musculoskeletal injuries to the arms and legs, such as sprains and fractures.

"In the spring, see patients with sports-related injuries from cycling, in-line skating, basketball, football and baseball," says Germaine Fritz, D.O., an orthopedic surgeon at Botsford General Hospital. Dr. Fritz is the only Botsford physician to have received an Added Qualification in Hand Surgery certification from the American Osteopathic Board of Orthopedic Surgery. "May of these injuries can be very serious for children and require immediate treatment."

According to Dr. Fritz and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the following tips should help parents and children avoid sports-related injuries this spring:

• Get a physical exam before taking up any sport
• Wear all required safety gear
• Warm-up and stretch before playing
• Don't play through pain: see a doctor immediately if injured
• Have a first aid kit handy at all games and practices
• make sure your child's coach enforces rules and encourages safety
• Keep sports fun so that kids don't feel they have to push hard and risk injury to win