Parents Should Be Watchful About The Intense Specialization Of Sports Among Their Kids

Sports-inclined kids who are into athletics should be encouraged to get into various activities and acquire a wide range of skills to keep them away from the risk of injuries which may lead to osteoarthritis, according to the Science Daily website. In recent years engineers and physicians claimed to have "a new discovery that could lead to better hip replacements" and longer lifespan for implants.

Osteoarthritis is an inflammation in the joint that results from cartilage degeneration and may be caused by aging, heredity, and injury from trauma or disease, the MedicineNet.com website says.

Young sportsperson who are into high- intensity sports are under snowballing pressure to play only one sport year round, but such specialization may lead to an upsurge in the risk of damages, according to a study by the Loyola University Health System. The American Academy of Paediatrics 2000 policy statement encourages young kids to get into various sporting events.

Those who are prone of encountering injuries are the young athletes who are more into intense specialized training in one sport, says Dr. Neeru Jayanthi, medical director of primary sports medicine at the Loyola University Health System and author of the study. He recommended the parents to be wary about the intense specialization before and during teenage years and be duty-bound of considering in signing up their youngsters in several sports, the Science Daily says.

Jayanthi shown the results during the May 2 annual assembly of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine in Salt Lake City, Utah. He said the existing data are still initial researches.

Researchers from Loyola and Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago are signing on more athletes and the athletes will be appraised every six months for three years. This research will further assess the risk of intense training during growth spurts.

Young athletes should be thoroughly checked for injuries, especially if they spend 11 or more hours a week in a single, organized sport or more than 20 hours a week in all sports, Jayanthi said.

The common injuries in young athletes include minor conditions such as muscle strains and knee cap pain, go to extremes injuries such as rotator cuff tendonitis and Osgood-Schlatter Disease and severe injuries such abnormalities in knee cartilage and stress fractures in the spine.

Although there are young competitors which are focusing in all major sports, Jayanthi said the most extreme specialization arises in certain advanced skill kind of sports such as tennis, gymnastics and dance. If taken for granted, most likely these young athletes may develop high risk of osteoarthritis, which may cause hip pains that made patients decide to have hip implants surgery that got a lot of DePuy Pinnacle lawsuit.