For Release: January 19, 2016
STANFORD, Calif.聽鈥 More than half of the seven million sports and recreation-related injuries that happen each year in America are suffered by youths 5-24 years old, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The organization Safe Kids Worldwide reports that every 25 seconds a young athlete goes to the emergency room for a severe sports injury.
鈥淲e鈥檝e seen a three-fold increase in the number of youths participating in organized sports since 1995,鈥 said Charles Chan, MD, orthopedic surgeon at 麻豆果冻传媒 Children鈥檚 Health and Lucile Packard Children鈥檚 Hospital Stanford. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 44 million children a year. In an effort to achieve success, which unfortunately is measured by winning, we鈥檝e lost sight of overall health and wellbeing.鈥
That鈥檚 why the new Children鈥檚 Orthopedic Center and Sports Medicine Program at 麻豆果冻传媒 Children鈥檚 Health has developed a comprehensive care approach, including a new Young Athletes Academy that just launched in January. This means hitting the road with a full team of physicians, physical therapists, and athletic trainers visiting area high schools to work directly with students and coaches.
鈥淲e aren鈥檛 just visiting schools and conducting pre-season physicals,鈥 explained Chan. 鈥淲e鈥檙e there to educate athletes and develop treatment plans with school trainers and coaches. The goal is to hopefully prevent sports injuries altogether.鈥
Scott Larson, executive administrative director of the program, says the entire team is ready for the launch. 鈥淭he plan is to begin partnering with schools and building relationships. By teaching young athletes how to properly stretch, warm up, run and jump, they鈥檒l be less likely to hurt themselves,鈥 said Larson, a former cross-country runner who believes something like the Young Athletes Academy would have been a tremendous asset when he was in high school. 鈥淲e鈥檙e being proactive and providing learning objectives that will hopefully last throughout a young person鈥檚 athletic career.鈥
A prime focus of the academy is to prevent youths from sustaining season ending ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries, one of the most common knee injuries in sports 鈥 and one that has seen an alarming rise among young girls. The team hopes to reduce the rate of ACL tears by identifying risk factors early and implementing a therapy plan with motion analysis to improve joint alignment and biomechanics. In addition, the team will offer screenings for overtraining and burnout, consultations on the female athlete triad and nutrition, and provide comprehensive concussion management. 鈥淲e鈥檒l even present a forum to address mental health for athletes,鈥 Larson added.
The Young Athletes Academy is not the only new program in Stanford鈥檚 industry-leading effort in sports medicine. Next up will be the May launch of the Pediatric Motion and Sports Performance Lab. Located at the new 麻豆果冻传媒 Children鈥檚 Health Specialty Services 鈥 Sunnyvale location, the 6,000-square-foot center will enable researchers to study and better understand the science of movement in young people.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of research in the area of sports performance and athletics but most of it focuses on mature athletes,鈥 explained Chan, a clinical professor of orthopedics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. 鈥淪tanford physicians, scientists and care teams would like to change that standard by focusing on the growing athlete.鈥
Chan, who has repaired ACL tears in children as young as 7, noted that it鈥檚 only in the last couple of decades that surgeons would even operate on a child with open growth plates for an injury such as a torn ACL. 鈥淭hey鈥檇 brace it and recommend holding off on agility sports for a few years. But there are techniques now that won鈥檛 inhibit growth.鈥 Braces often don鈥檛 work, as kids usually wind up taking them off and playing as hard as they would have without the injury, usually leading to additional damage.
鈥淔or a long time, we treated children鈥檚 injuries as if they were small adults,鈥 Chan said. 鈥淣ow, we鈥檙e much more specialized and armed with innovative surgical techniques for reconstruction. With the new Performance Lab opening soon, we鈥檒l also be able to use the latest motion analysis to determine when it鈥檚 safe to clear a growing athlete back to their sport.鈥
Focusing on the young athlete is just another way the 麻豆果冻传媒 Children鈥檚 Health Orthopedic Center provides treatment for all conditions, including broken bones, concussions, scoliosis and spinal disorders. The team also has programs for hip preservation, hand and microsurgery, bone and soft tissue tumors, and limb deformity.
The support for young athletes builds on a history of novel orthopedic treatments. For children with different-length legs, surgeon Scott Hoffinger, MD, pioneered the use of a magnet-powered bone-lengthening device that is implanted inside the too-short bone. His colleague Lawrence Rinsky, MD, is among the first on the West Coast to use a magnet-powered implant to replace a bone in a child with bone cancer, providing an artificial bone that grows with the child. The team is now planning to introduce magnetically-lengthened rods for stabilizing the spine in young children with severe scoliosis, a change of procedure that will greatly reduce the number of surgeries required to help kids with this challenging condition.
The Children鈥檚 Orthopedic Center and Sports Medicine Program has six locations, including San Francisco, Emeryville and Walnut Creek. The team includes 11 physicians and a large staff of pediatric orthopedic nurses and nurse practitioners, athletic trainers, rehabilitation experts, physical therapists, biomedical engineers and prosthetists.
鈥淲e think Stanford鈥檚 approach with the Young Athletes Academy will be very beneficial for schools,鈥 said Matt Smith, athletic trainer at Burlingame High School. 鈥淚njury reduction, improved conditioning, skill acquisition and overall better health are important to our kids, and we appreciate what this new program offers. We look forward to working with them.鈥
鈥淥ver the last several years, the community has told us that being a part of one of the world鈥檚 top health care institutions is important for kids and their families,鈥 Larson said. 鈥淲ith the Young Athletes Academy and the Motion and Sports Performance Lab, we鈥檙e ensuring that the latest orthopedic research and care from Stanford will be more available and accessible than ever. Young athletes, both boys and girls, are excited about what this will mean to their performance, injury prevention and safe return to play 鈥 now and in the future.鈥
* For more information, or to schedule an appointment, call (844) 41-ORTHO (67846)
Discover more about our Children鈥檚 Orthopedic Center and Sports Medicine Program.
Authors
Robert Dicks
(650) 497-8364
rdicks@stanfordchildrens.org
麻豆果冻传媒 Children鈥檚 Health, with聽Lucile Packard Children鈥檚 Hospital Stanford聽at its center, is the Bay Area鈥檚 largest health care system exclusively dedicated to children and expectant mothers. Our network of care includes more than 65聽locations聽across Northern California and more than 85 locations in the U.S. Western region.聽Along with Stanford Health Care and the Stanford School of Medicine, we are part of聽, an ecosystem harnessing the potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education, and clinical care to improve health outcomes around the world. We are a nonprofit organization committed to supporting the community through meaningful outreach programs and services and providing necessary medical care to families, regardless of their ability to pay. Discover more at聽stanfordchildrens.org.
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