Week Three: High School Sports Are Increasing Injuries

High school Sport injuries are on the rise. Many students are breaking or spraining bones, tearing muscles, and pulling muscles. People would think that the injury rate would be getting lower due to better sports technology and all, but that is completely wrong. In the article, Sports injuries common in high school, Meagan Howell is a soccer player and was competing in a game for Providence Christian School when she tore her ACL. She was trying to trap the ball when she put her foot the wrong way and another player clipped her.

“I guess I have a high tolerance for pain,” Howell said. “... It was torn to shreds.”

The ACL is one of the four main ligaments in the knee and it gives main support for the knee. I could see how badly that would hurt.

Also, in the article All high school sports injuries are not created equal, it explains which parts of the body get injured the most and a study on which sports are more likely to produce severe injuries in high school.

"Girls had a higher severe injury rate overall than boys, and girls basketball ranked higher in injuries than boys basketball." That is very interesting because usually boys are more rough in sports than girls. Also, football had the highest injury rate of 0.69 per 1,000 athletic events, which is very high.

Also, a study showed which body parts were injured the most. Knees were on the very top of the list, followed by the ankle and then shoulder. The most common diagnoses were fractures and ligament sprains. Out of all the severe injuries, 28.3% needed surgery. Most of the injuries caused players to be out of the season for about 21 days, or even the whole season. I think that students should buy better equipment or braces to help injury rates go down.

Lastly in the article, High School Sports Put Players at Risk for Severe Injuries, it explains a new study that shows, "Nearly 15 percent of all high school sports injuries are bad enough to keep a child from playing for at least three weeks, with football leading the pack in severe injuries" That rate is really high and it shouldn't be with all the technology to prevent that.

"Preventing these types of severe injuries is especially important to minimize health-care costs both on the family and on the health-care system itself," said Comstock. That is definitely true and people should look at ways to minimize these rates. There are around 2 million sports-related injuries that result in 30,000 hospitalizations. High school students shouldn't go through that many injuries with sports. Players should find ways to protect themselves from severe injuries and still be able to enjoy the sports they play.