AFFILIATIONS
After being cooped up indoors during the winter months, children are now taking advantage of the fine weather by doing a lot of playing and exploration. As a result, there’s usually a spike of ER visits among children during these hot summer months, based on my experience. Most of these kids suffer from injuries that happened in the playground, baseball parks, swimming pools, and bicycles.
Unfortunately, if you and your child are not being careful, doing physical activities over the summer can result to injury. Children jump right into the full swing of activities after being inactive in the last couple of months, making them prone to injury. These four injuries are the most common among children:
Sprains and Strains
A sprain is an injury to the ligament, while a strain is an injury to a muscle.
Growth Plate Injury
The growth plate is a tissue area at the end of a long bone that is still developing. Growth plate injuries are called fractures, and they happen to children and young people.
Repetitive Motion Injury
If an activity is repeated often enough, it could cause stress on a child’s muscles and tendons, resulting to acute traumatic injuries or chronic overuse injuries.
Preventing Summer Injuries
Injuries can and will happen. But don’t let these prevent your children from having the best summer of their lives. Instead of banning your children indoors, you can encourage them to take part in organized sports through clubs and communities that are being maintained by professionals.
Also get them proper equipment. Make sure they’re using a shoe that’s appropriate for their sports and playing surface. And as always, keep them hydrated. Make warm-ups and cool-downs a permanent part of their routine.
Treatment of Summer Injuries
If your child suffers from injury this summer, the first thing to remember is to implement RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation). Get professional help if the injury is severe. If the pain does not subside after a while, or if a shoulder or a knee bends the wrong way, consult with a San Diego pediatric orthopedic doctor right away.
Tags: best orthopedic surgeon san diego, san diego orthopedic doctor, san diego orthopedic surgery
