Prevention of sports injuries in childhood and adolescence
26/05/2021
Nührenbörger C., Mouton C., Engelhardt M. Sports Orthop. Traumatol. 37, 10–17 (2021) Prävention von Sportverletzungen im Kindes- und Jugendalter. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orthtr.2021.01.005
Sport in childhood and adolescence has many positive effects on a physical, psychological and social level as well as negative consequences such as sport injuries. There is a clear increase in acute and overuse injuries, with some serious long-term consequences on later life. In order to minimize the risk of injury, various preventive measures such as special exercise programs, age-appropriate training and competition loads, protective equipment, preventive sports medical examinations and competition support as well as rule changes have been introduced. The majority of them show positive results with a reduction in the number of injuries by 30 to 80%.
However, there are still difficulties, in particular with the implementation of the prevention exercises, which in the future must be carried out with the cooperation of all structures that support sports at club, federation and school sports level as well as in sports and health policy. It is important that all supervising persons are convinced of the proven benefits of the early application of prevention exercises on health and performance in children and youth sports and that sports medicine science focuses even more on the evidence on prevention.