Friday, August 24, 2012
Test Don't Guess
When Pre-Participation Physicals Become Return to Sport Testing
High School and College sports are in high gear, your the only ATC or Sport Physio at the school and now in addition to having to cover 3 levels of football, 2 soccer teams, volleyball, cross country, & fall tennis you have a few club sports that are requesting that you help out with an injured athlete; oh I forgot that the initial injuries that are coming in the doors to the training room to be assessed/evaluated and treated.
How do you determine when to return athletes to play?
Athlete "Can I play today?, Friday night?, When?."
Coach " When will they be ready?"
Your Answer"______________________"?
My answer "When Your/their LQ-YBT and FMS scores return to baseline or better and you/they no longer have pain".
Do you have an objective baseline measure that indicates level of injury risk (any objective measure for that matter) from Pre-Season Physicals that you can use to answer the above questions? If not you should.
Test Don't Guess!
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Is baseline an appopriate measure to get to if the injury was non-contact in nature?
ReplyDeleteGreat question. I would say no, we need to return the athlete to the "Normal Risk" classification. Risk classification is based on an individuals Age, Gender, Sport and Competition level.
ReplyDeleteThat said, if we do not have a baseline measure on the athlete how do you know when they are ready to return to sport? Most people are making a guess; a smart few are comparing to normative measures. The elite of sports medicine are doing both Pre-Season testing & RTS testing and then comparing the results to normative measures.