ACL Injuries in Children and Youth

An article in the February 18, 2008, New York Times by excellent health and fitness reporter Gina Kolata,A Big Time Injury Striking Little Players' Knees and another one in the Times for May 18 by Michael Sokolove The Uneven Playing Field deal with the rise in ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries in child and youth athletes.  Formerly, ACL tears were thought to occur only in professional athletes.  Not so any more in our age of highly intense, competitive youth sports!  Both articles point to the intense specialization and near year-round competition in a single sport among elite youth athletes as a cause.  Moreover, girls sustain these injuries far more commonly than boys.  The articles are sending us a message that we ought to be concerned about the future of the athletes who sustain these injuries.  Will they be able to exercise enough to be fit at mid-life or will they be hobbling on "trick knees" while telling their children and grandchildren of their past athletic glories?  Sokolove, who has a book, Warrior Girls, coming out in June on the "macho" culture of girls' sports is particularly alarmed about the attitude that girls must tough out and play through athletic injuries to avoid losing the hard-won gains made in women's sports as a result of enforcement of Title IX.  The articles stress how serious ACL injuries are and how much more difficult they are to treat in children and youth who have not stopped growing than in adults.  Both also hold out hope that new training methods and surgical techniques will help prevent these injuries and make them easier to treat.  Let's hope that coaches, especially girls basketball and soccer coaches, are quick to adapt the new training methods and the new surgical techniques are successful. 

 Still better, why not let youth sports be less competitive, more inclusive and more fun and leave playing through pain to professional athletes?  And, why not let youth take at least one season off per year to rest or try another sport that stresses different muscle groups as groups like MomsTeam and the American Academy of Pediatrics keep recommending.