News updates
Steoporosis: Steroid Danger
Source: Ivanhoe
10-million Americans have osteoporosis and 18-million more are at risk. The bone disease leads to an increase in fractures in the hip, spine and wrist accounting for one-point-five million painful fractures each year and one woman’s harrowing story of recovery is inspiring.
Link possible between oral contraceptive use, ACL injury in females
Source: Healio
Researchers from Denmark have uncovered a potential link between oral contraceptive use and instances of ACL injuries that required surgical intervention in women. The researchers evaluated 4,497 women who were treated operatively for an ACL injury between July 2005 and December 2011 and 8,858 age-matched, uninjured controls.
The difficulties of treating shoulder pain in baseball pitchers
Source: Medical News Today
Results of treating shoulder pain in baseball pitchers and other throwing athletes are not as predictable as doctors, patients and coaches would like to think, according to a report in the journal Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics of North America.
Prompt, appropriate medical care for dislocated shoulder injuries
Prompt and appropriate treatment of a dislocated shoulder — when the head of the upper arm bone is completely knocked out of the shoulder socket — can minimize risk for future dislocations as well as the effects of related bone, muscle and nerve injuries, according to a literature review.
Mind over matter: Can you think your way to strength?
Source: Science Daily
Regular mental imagery exercises help preserve arm strength during 4 weeks of immobilization, researchers have found. Strength is controlled by a number of factors — the most studied by far is skeletal muscle. However, the nervous system is also an important, though not fully understood, determinant of strength and weakness. In this study, researchers set out to test how the brain’s cortex plays into strength development.
Arm pain in young baseball players common, preventable
Source: Science Daily
Arm pain is common among supposedly healthy young baseball players and nearly half have been encouraged to keep playing despite arm pain, the most in-depth survey of its kind has found. The findings suggest that more detailed and individualized screening is needed to prevent overuse injury in young ballplayers.
What is repetitive strain injury (RSI)? What causes repetitive strain injury?
Source: Medical News Today
Repetitive strain injury or RSI, also known as repetitive stress injury, repetitive motion injuries, repetitive motion disorder (RMD), cumulative trauma disorder (CTD), occupational overuse syndrome, overuse syndrome, and regional musculoskeletal disorder is a range of painful or uncomfortable conditions of the muscles, tendons, nerves and other soft tissues. RSI is usually caused by repetitive use of a certain part of the body, often somewhere in the upper limbs (arms).
Repetitive strain injury is typically related to an occupation (job), but may also be linked to some kinds of leisure activity. As opposed to a sudden or ‘normal’ injury, RSI signs and symptoms may continue for much longer.
Young baseball players frequently suffer from preventable arm pain
Source: Medical News Today
The most in-depth survey of its kind found that arm pain is common among supposedly healthy young baseball players and nearly half have been encouraged to keep playing despite arm pain. The findings suggest that more detailed and individualized screening is needed to prevent overuse injury in young ballplayers. The study, led by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers, was published in the online edition of the American Journal of Sports Medicine.
Divergent trends seen in meniscal and cartilage injuries between primary and revision ACL repair
Source: Healio
In a community-based sample, the prevalence of articular cartilage injury increased between primary and revision ACL repair, whereas the prevalence of meniscal injury decreased, according to recent study findings.
Researchers studied 261 patients who underwent both primary and revision ACL reconstruction (ACLR) between February 2005 and September 2011 via community-based registry. Patient data (sex, age, race and BMI), procedure characteristics and descriptive statistics (medians, interquartile ranges, frequencies and proportions) were the metrics used for evaluation.
Overall, 256 patients required revision ACLR due to instability, and the remaining five were due to infection.
Cartilage injuries nearly doubled (14.9% to 31.8%) from primary to revision ACLR, whereas meniscal tears decreased overall from 54.8% at primary ACLR to 43.7% at revision. This trend was also reflected in lateral meniscus tears (32.2% at primary, 18.4% at revision), though medial meniscus tears were observed to be the same (32.6%) at both primary and revision ACLR, according to the researchers.
A 70.8% prevalence of meniscus tear in revision was observed in patients who had meniscus fixation during primary ACLR.
Disclosure: The authors have no relevant financial disclosures.
Female athletes at highest risk for first-time noncontact ACL tear
Source: Healio
Although multiple factors influence first-time noncontact ACL injuries, female athletes are most at risk to sustain them, according to recently published data.
Researchers reviewed first-time noncontact ACL injury data from 320,719 collegiate athletes and 873,057 high school athletes between fall 2008 and spring 2012. Athlete exposure was determined retrospectively using team-reported schedule and roster data. Effects of competition level, sport and sex on ACL injury risk were estimated by Poisson regression.
Athlete incidence rate was 0.150 per 1,000 person-days among collegiate athletes and 0.061 per 1,000 person-days among high school athletes. When adjusted for differences in sport and gender, the researchers found college athletes were significantly more likely to sustain a first-time noncontact ACL injury than high school athletes.
Overall injury incidence rate was 0.112 in female athletes and 0.063 for males. When adjusted for sport and level of play, females were more than two times more likely than males to have a first-time noncontact ACL injury.
Among all athletes, rugby and soccer players ran the highest risk of these ACL injuries (2.23 and 1.77 times more likely, respectively), according to the researchers.
Disclosure: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01 AR050421) and the Department of Energy (SC00017).