Child Youth Sports Injuries & The Treatments Available
Recover from an injury, return to favourite activities, and enhance your athletic performance.
Young athletes are especially vulnerable to sports injuries. Why? Because they frequently participate in multiple sports at high levels of competition while their bodies are still developing. Many young athletes are treated for their sports injuries with surgery or pain relief medications.
Why would you opt for surgery or drugs when an accurate diagnosis followed by physiotherapy and chiropractic treatment can help?
Our experts at Kent Chiro-Med Wellness Clinic(downtown Ottawa) provide personalized care for young athletes suffering from sports-related injuries.
Is Kent Chiro-Med Wellness Clinic the Right Place for My Child?
Treatment Plan Focused on Youth
It is critical to understand that child and adolescent treatments are not the same as adult treatments. Children’s biomechanics differ from those of adults because they are still growing – both physically and mentally. Partner with us to get a treatment plan tailored to the child’s age, level of physical activity, and ongoing physical and mental development.
Expert Practitioners
You can be confident that our sports physiotherapists and chiropractors will provide an expert assessment to guide your therapy and rehabilitation program. The goal is to help you recover quickly and return to your sport or activity.
Comprehensive Treatment Plan
Experience the advantages of our comprehensive treatment philosophy. Some of our cutting-edge services are soft tissue therapy, joint mobilizations and adjustments, medical acupuncture/IMS, progressive mobility, and sport-specific training.
Customized Treatment
Every program is tailored to your children and their activities to ensure that the treatment process prepares them for the demands of their sport.
Prevention
Our goal is to not only help your child recover from an injury as quickly as possible but also to identify any functional deficits that contributed to the risk of injury. We will take the time to understand the demands of their sport, as well as their current training regimen, and then design a program to help them in the long run.
Experienced in Dealing with Sports' Related Injuries
From competitive athletes to weekend warriors, our approach has proven results with young athletes of all levels. We can help your child get back in the game (and stay there)!
- Pain relief and rehabilitation
- Healing and regaining function
- Restoration of skills needed to perform daily activities
- Return to sport
- Improved athletic performance
How do we Treat Sports Injuries without Drugs?
Chiropractic Adjustments
Chiropractic adjustments are a gentle and safe treatment option for many sports-related injuries. The intensity and type of adjustment given to each patient depending on many factors including age, injury history, comorbidities, stage of development, etc. Our chiropractors always screen for red flags and determine whether or not each child is a candidate for adjustments, and to ensure that your child is safe at all times.
Physical therapy exercises
Proper stretching and strengthening is also important for the recovery of sports-related injuries. Our physiotherapists can recommend an exercise plan, tailored for your child, to increase their range of motion, flexibility, coordination, strength, balance, agility, and more
Three Stages of Rehabilitation in Physiotherapy Treatment
Following a diagnosis from your physiotherapist and/or chiropractor, you can begin your rehabilitation, which consists of three major stages
The first step is to understand the mechanism of pain and control it. Our therapists educate every patient, old or young, about where their pain is coming from and how to properly manage it. Our therapists may use various modalities and assistive devices to help stabilize the injured body part of the patient. The initial goal is to reduce pain and swelling and to promote healing. Therapeutic modalities available at our clinic include electrical muscle stimulation and ultrasound to help with muscular strains and sprains, as well as ligament damage from injury. Microcurrent is particularly beneficial in bone injuries such as shin splints.
The third and final stage is sports rehabilitation, which aims to help you regain your athletic abilities through the use of various treatment techniques that focus on balance, coordination, flexibility, and strength. Sport-specific exercises and neurokinetic techniques will be used to help your child learn how to correct the injured part at home and to re-learn how to move normally. In addition, he or she will learn new techniques for protecting vulnerable muscles and joints.
In addition to treating the injury, our chiropractors and physiotherapists will work together to heal the affected area to prevent further injuries. We will also teach your child what to avoid, and how to do a proper warm-up and cool-down for his or her sport, lowering the likelihood of another injury in the future.
Common Youth Sports Injuries in Canada
Canadians spent more than
Ice hockey, football, soccer, basketball, snowboarding, and dance cause the highest rates of injury among the youth.
Children between ages 5 and 14 years old are the most vulnerable age group to the playground, sports, and bicycle-related injuries
Types of Sports-Related Injuries
Acute injury
An acute injury is one of the most common types of sports injury. It occurs as a result of a single incident, such as a sprain, strain, fracture, or tear.
Overuse injury
Overuse injuries are caused by excessively repetitive movements over a long period. Frozen shoulder, tendonitis, shin splints, tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, and Little Leaguer’s elbow are all common overuse injuries.
Reinjuries
Reinjury occurs when an athlete returns to the sport before a previous injury has healed completely. When athletes return to the game before fully recovering, they are at a much higher risk of reinjury. This puts additional strain on the injury and forces the body to compensate for the weakness, putting the athlete at greater risk of injuring another body part.
How do Chiropractic & Physiotherapy Adjustments Work?
Chiropractic Treatment
The primary advantage of professional chiropractic care is that it treats musculoskeletal problems without the use of drugs. This can include muscle strains, joint sprains, disc injuries and more.
When a muscle or joint is injured, the body may react by tightening muscles and joints in other parts of the body. This is the body’s way of balancing and protecting itself. Persistent pain in one part of the body could be the result of a direct injury to that part of the body or a reaction to a restriction in another part of the body.
This is where a chiropractor’s holistic approach comes in handy. Athletes frequently suffer avoidable injuries or fail to respond to standard treatments because they fail to consider the big picture. Others perform below their physical potential because of musculoskeletal imbalances.
Physiotherapy
Physiotherapy is primarily concerned with treating muscular and joint pain through rehabilitative exercises and stretching. They may also employ other techniques such as heat therapy, hydrotherapy, or ultrasound. Physiotherapists are typically called upon to assist patients in regaining mobility following a major accident or injury.
Don’t let your child suffer because of sports injuries. Make an appointment with one of our experts at Kent Chiro-Med Wellness Clinic for immediate pain relief and rehabilitation.
Yes. We use non-invasive methods to treat children safely. Our chiropractors are experts at knowing which children are candidates for spinal adjustments and which aren’t. We always screen for red flags prior to care.
As pre-teens enter puberty and grow taller and heavier, their risk of injury increases at age 12 for girls and at age 14 for boys. Girls are at higher risk of injury after puberty because as their body size increases, they do not develop more muscle power.
Overuse injuries and burnout can result from intense training in a single sport. To help your child avoid overuse injuries, enroll them in many sports instead of just one. Also, ascertain that your child is employing the proper technique and equipment, and teach your child to be aware of pain and fatigue. The body’s way of saying “slow down, recover, and heal” is through pain and fatigue. Sore muscles are common after starting a new activity, but pain can indicate an injury. Finally, make certain that your child receives adequate rest and nutrition.
Schedule a session with his/her practitioner to confirm whether they are ready to return to play or not. Every injury – assessed through careful assessment – has a specific profile of recovery. We assess the recovery during each appointment to ensure that the injury heals fast.
If you believe your child has a long term injury, requiring strengthening or conditioning to prevent injury, you can always seek a referral to a physiotherapist. If this is a new injury, we always recommend chiropractic care to help with pain management and limitations in ranges of motion.