My Final Day at ACSM 2013

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.

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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