Kids’ sports might seem like little more than organized fun and games, but the crowded doctors’ offices filled with tomorrow’s stars and hopefuls tell a different story. And the injuries that are being treated are nothing like they were in the past.
“Some days our waiting room looks like a pediatrician’s office,” Dr. Robert Sheinberg from the South Florida Institute of Sports Medicine told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Both Sheinberg and Dr. Len Remia from the Cleveland Clinic Hospital, also in Florida, can verify what the Physician and Sportsmedicine Journal concludes: the most common reason child athletes visit a doctor today is no longer from traumatic injuries but from simple overuse.
Remia told the Sun-Sentinel that reconstructive elbow surgery is now four times as common in teens as it was only five years ago and statistics confer. Sheinberg, who sees plenty of sprains and strains following weekend games, attributes the problem to children not taking time off from their activities