Types of Sports Injuries: Is it an Acute Sports Injury or an Overuse/Chronic Sports Injury?
Sports injuries are best defined as injuries that occur while participating in competitions, organized fitness activities, organized sports or training sessions. Several factors can cause sports injuries, including improper training, rapid growth (those experiencing puberty) and not having the appropriate safety equipment or footwear. The types of sports injuries are important to determine because it can play a major role in treating injuries.
Acute Traumatic Sports Injury
This type of sports injury typically involves one hit from one application of force. For example, during a football game, a player who gets a cross-body block is at risk for suffering from an acute sports injury. Acute traumatic sports injuries include:
- Fracture: This injury occurs when a bone is cracked, shattered, or broken.
- Strain: This injury occurs when a tendon or muscle or torn or stretched (a tendon is a tissue in the body that connects bones to muscles).
- Abrasion: This injury occurs when the skin is scraped.
- Contusion: Also referred to as a bruise, this injury occurs when a direct hit causes bleeding and swelling in the muscles and/or other tissues in the body.
- Sprain: This injury occurs when a ligament is torn or stretched (a ligament is a tissue that connects cartilage to bone, and strengthens and supports the joints).
- Laceration: This acute sports injury occurs when the skin is cut. This injury is often deep and requires stitches to close.
Overuse/Chronic Sports Injury
This type of sports injury involves the injuries that happen over time. Factors that often cause overuse/chronic sports injuries, include repetitive training, such as overhand throwing, running or serving a ball in tennis. Overuse/chronic sports injuries include:
- Stress Fractures: This injury occurs when repetitive overloading results in small cracks appearing in the bone’s surface. A good example of this injury is the bones in the feet or shins developing stress fractures when a basketball player is constantly jumping on the basketball court.
- Apophysitis or Epiphysitis: This type of injury is known as a growth plate overload injury. Osgood-Schlatter disease can cause this injury. This condition is an overload injury of the knee in which physical stress and frequent use cause swelling and pain (inflammation) at the point where the tibia (shinbone) and patella (tendon from the kneecap) attach.
- Tendinitis: This injury occurs when repetitive stretching results in a tendon becoming inflamed.
What are the Most Common Sports Injuries?
The most common injuries caused by sports include:
- Strains and sprains
- Swollen muscles
- Achilles tendon injuries
- Fractures
- Knee injuries
- Pain along the shin bone
- Dislocations
Which Type of Sports Injury is More Serious?
The type of injury does not really matter. How the player is affected is what matters in terms of how serious a sports injury is. Many athletes feel that acute sports injuries are always more important than overuse/chronic sports injuries. This often results in an athlete ignoring a sore knee or an aching wrist. Overtime, this soreness or ache can become a very serious injury that, in some cases, can end an athlete’s career. Both types of sports injuries should be treated as necessary and no athlete should ever avoid abnormal sensations.
Resources
Sports Injury Clinic. (2010). Welcome to the Virtual Sports Injury Clinic. Retrieved on June 30, 2010 from the Sports Injury Clinic: https://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/
Medline Plus. (2010). Sports Injuries. Retrieved on June 30, 2010 from Medline Plus: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/sportsinjuries.html
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