There’s an App for that 1.0

June 11, 2013 by 2 Comments

The official first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere is ten days from now, but it already feels like the season has begun with the temperatures climbing and the sun high in the sky (that is, unless you are attending the U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club, where the heavens have opened and the course is soggy).

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Ah, the glories of summer (with apologies to my friends ‘Down Under’)

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My frequent friend: on the sideline, in the clinic, even by the pool!

It’s time to relax here in Columbus, Ohio:  the kids are out of school, the family is often by the pool, and I have my ever present stack of journals on the desk but the smart phone is in hand. It’s  just plain easier to access a lot of information these days using that device, and so it’s in the spirit of  summer that I offer the readership the next couple of blog posts on some of the sports medicine apps I rely on.

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Filed under General Interest

My Final Day at ACSM 2013

June 2, 2013 by 1 Comment

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Drs. Ackerman and Karlson getting ready to talk about rowing!

Where did the time go?

The last day for the 2013 American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting in Indy has come and gone (unbelievably) and I want  to share with you some of the highlights of the sessions I attended.  It was a busy, fulfilling, and energizing few days of a conference that already has me thinking about future meetings:  AMSSM, CASEM and ACSM 2014 (not to mention heading to an Australian Sports Physicians Meeting some day!)

I attended a rowing medicine session delivered by Drs. Kate Ackerman, Timothy Hosea and Kris Karlson which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Dr. Hosea, a Team Physician for the U.S. National and Olympic Rowing teams, chaired the session, and together the three reveiwed a host  of the most common issues in the scientific and clinical care of this special group of athletes.  Among many new pieces of information I walked away with, they pointed out an excellent review article on the subject from Lisa McDonnell of New Zealand which I would commend to the blog’s readership.  In addition, for anyone interested in this topic who was not able to attend the session, and who is not familiar with our journal’s excellent series of journal club articles, I would point you in the direction of the journal club review from 2011 CJSM authored by Seamus Dalton of Australia which reviews a 1997 study by Hickey et al.

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Drs. Andrew Gregory of Vanderbilt, Nashville, TN and Greg Canty of Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City MO

Next, I attended a session on “Injury Prevention Equipment in Youth Sports” delivered by my friends Andrew Gregory, M.D. and Greg Canty, M.D.  This is a topic of special interest to me, as it not only involves pediatric athletes, my area of medical specialization, but addresses the issues of primary and secondary prevention of injuries.

Dr. Canty discussed the issues of head, mouth and neck gear, with a particular focus on their use in mitigating the rate of concussions in contact and collision sports.  Dr. Gregory focused on a broad overview of protective equipment, and the most important facts I took away from his talk concerned the rare but catastrophic injury, commotio cordis.

This injury cannot be prevented by commercially available chest protectors:  there are no data in any peer-reviewed study that have shown a decrease in the rate of commotio cordis for athletes playing baseball, softball, hockey or lacrosse.  There is, however, evidence in favor of using “safety baseballs,” a softer version of a baseball which meets specifications set by the National Operating Committee on Standard for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE).

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Filed under General Interest, Injury Prevention Tagged with ,

ACSM Annual Meeting in Indianapolis

May 30, 2013 by

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Vintage Indy 500: Dan Gurney

Indianapolis:  home of the Indy 500, that just took place last Sunday, and this week home of the 60th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).

I’ve already enjoyed a couple of great days here, and I wanted to share some of the high points.

First, I attended a session on exercise therapy and youth, cleverly entitled, “Linking Health Care with Fitness Care in Youth to Prevent Generation XXL.”  The session was organized as a series of talks given as part of ACSM 2013 and the concurrently run 4th World Congress on Exercise is Medicine.  Among the speakers was Avery Faigenbaum, EdD, a professor of pediatric exercise science whom I have heard speak on several occasions over the years.

He is always a scintillating speaker.  Much of his work over the years has involved demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of resistance training in youth.  His talk here  as part of this session took on a different subject:   “Exercise Deficit Disorder in Youth:  Challenging Traditional Dogma.”  If you have not heard of “Exercise Deficit Disorder” (EDD) before, you will be hearing more about it in the future.

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Filed under Concussion in Sport, Evidence-based Medicine in SEM, Exercise Medicine, General Interest, Physical activity interventions, Youth Sport Tagged with ,

The Hits Keep Coming

May 25, 2013 by 1 Comment

I hope this blog’s readers are enjoying their Memorial Day weekend if they’re in the U.S., or their Spring Bank Holiday weekend if in the U.K.   And if I’m unaware that there is another three-day weekend being celebrated out there, please forgive my myopia.  I do believe it was last weekend that my friends in Canada were enjoying the Victoria’s Day weekend, but this week brings a standard two days off.  However, if I have confused my holidays, again, I submit my humble apologies!

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Wembley Stadium, London. Site of 2013 Champions League Final.

I suspect a lot of you are watching the all-German Champions League final right now, or perhaps you’re napping and waiting for the start of the French Open tomorrow. Maybe it’s the Indy 500 on Monday you’re waiting for…..or, speaking of Indy, you’re hoping for another Pacers upset of the Heat in the NBA playoffs. Regardless, here’s to a great sporting weekend!

I wanted to look at an interesting article from the most recent edition of CJSM in this weekend’s blog post…..which I learned today is something quite different from a blog.  Apparently there is a blogger posting at Slate about his irritation over the misuses of the word ‘blog’ and the phrase ‘blog post.’  It turns out that right now you are visiting the CJSM ‘blog’ but are reading a ‘blog post’ entitled, “The Hits Keep Coming.”  Please do pass this “blog post” on to your friends, and recommend they visit our “blog,” but do not mix up your phrasing or the Slate editor might make you a focus of one of his future rants.

I suspect his irritation might resemble mine, or some of this blog’s (???) readers, when folks mix up ‘incidence’ and ‘prevalence,’ so I want to grant that his irritation may be righteous and I will try my level best as I work on my posts to use correct blog terminology!

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The Rocky Mountains: it’s hard to plug one’s ears to their siren’s call.

On to the article of the weekend: “Epidemiology of U.S. High School Sports-Related Ligamentous Ankle Injuries, 2005/06 – 2010/11,” written by a group including my friends R. Dawn Comstock, PhD.,  the senior author, and Christy Collins, MA., the corresponding author.  This team has been prolific in their publication of sports medicine epidemiology articles, drawing much of their work from the high school injury surveillance project, “Reporting Information on Line” (RIO): “….an internet-based surveillance software developed under the direction of Dr. Dawn Comstock.”  I had the privilege of working with Dawn at my home base, Nationwide Children’s Hospital until recently, when the lure of the Rocky Mountains drew her to the University of Colorado, Denver.

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Filed under Epidemiology, Evidence-based Medicine in SEM, General Interest, Women in Sport, Youth Sport Tagged with

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