In an effort to better understand the lasting impact of sports injuries, Stanford physicians collaborated with the university's athletic department to enroll nearly 1,700 student athletes in an electronic pre-participation evaluation (ePPE) program and track their health over a three-year period.
During the course of the study, which was published in the current issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine, the researchers documented 3,126 injuries (1,473 for women and 1,653 for men) that caused athletes to miss an average of 31 days of competition each. Musculoskeletal injuries were the most common, but athletes also suffered from concussions, eating disorders and infectious illnesses. As reported in a Stanford news story today, the research provides new insights into the lasting impact of injuries in greater detail than ever:
Among the findings, 11 percent of the students still suffered symptoms from a previous injury at the time of their next ePPE. Head injuries accounted for 9 percent of all injuries. Although only 3 percent of women reported a diagnosed eating disorder, 15 percent of all women reported a history of stress fractures, which can be associated with low body fat, from either disordered eating or overtraining.
[Gordon Matheson, MD, PhD, who led the study,] said that although the data are eye-opening, interpreting the material and deciding what is particularly meaningful may be an even bigger effort.
"We know that student-athletes have a lot of injuries from sport participation. But unless we have pooled, aggregate data like this, it's difficult to measure trends and spot areas of concern applied to prevention," said Matheson.
Researchers hope to partner with other universities to expand their data set and learn more about why some players are symptomatic at the time of follow-up evaluations and, ultimately, help make sports safer.
Previously: Female high-school athletes suffer more overuse injuries than their male counterparts, Director of Stanford Runner’s Injury Clinic discusses advances in treating six common running injuries, Lingering effects of injuries sideline many former college athletes later in life and Sports medicine specialists, educators endorse checklist to reduce injuries among youth athletes
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