In children with ACL injuries, surgery delay can cause irreparable meniscus tears
Source: MedicalNewsToday
For children aged 14 and under, delaying reconstructive surgery for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries may raise their risk of further injury, according to a new study by pediatric orthopaedic surgeons. If surgery occurs later than 12 weeks after the injury, the injury may even be irreparable.
ACL injuries have increased among children and young adults in recent years, possibly because of increased participation in high-level sports such as football, skiing, lacrosse, hockey and soccer, all of which place a high demand on the knees, where the ACL is located.
Pediatricians sound alarm on overuse sports injuries
Children are prone to sport-specific trauma to the growth plates. For example, dancers, skaters and cheerleaders are vulnerable to ankle damage, while baseball and football players tend to injure their shoulders and elbows. Runners suffer shin pain and knee problems, while gymnasts are prone to wrist damage from repetitive weight bearing.
“The combination of repetitive use and skeletal immaturity puts these youngsters at high risk for injuries, some of them long-lasting, so it is really important that young children have whole-body conditioning and engage in a variety of athletic activities rather than one sport,” Valasek says.
Stand Up: Your life could depend on it
Source: MedicalNewsToday
Standing up more often may reduce your chances of dying within three years, even if you are already physically active, a study of more than 200,000 people published in Archives of Internal Medicine shows.
The study found that adults who sat 11 or more hours per day had a 40% increased risk of dying in the next three years compared with those who sat for fewer than four hours a day. This was after taking into account their physical activity, weight and health status.
Can surgery help you stay in the game?
Source: Boston.com
Demand for joint replacement surgery, once confined largely to patients well past retirement age, has been growing rapidly among a class of people doctors have dubbed the “young actives” – those in the 45 to 64 age group who are determined to stay fit.
Still, even with the rise of obesity and longer lives, public health researchers say the rate of joint replacement failures requiring revisions is about 1 percent a year, mostly in the relatively younger patients who “outlive” the 10-to-20-year working life spans of their replacement joints. And as technique and technology have improved, the rates of infection, dislocations, and other complications have declined.
New method will increase likelihood of success in cartilage grafting procedures
Source: Medical News Today
For years, doctors have been able to treat defects in joint cartilage by grafting cartilage donated from cadavers into patients’ bad joints. Using current methods, donated cartilage can be stored for 28 days for a transplant before the tissue becomes too degraded to transplant into a patient. Now, researchers from the University of Missouri have found a way to store donated cartilage more than twice as long.
In a study due to be published in the Journal of Knee Surgery, Cook and Aaron Stoker from MU’s Comparative Orthopaedic Laboratory, Clark Hung and Eric Lima from Columbia University, and James Stannard, the J. Vernon Luck Sr. Distinguished Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery in the MU School of Medicine, tested tissue using their patented system, which includes storing the tissue at room temperature in a specially designed container and storage solution. The researchers found that their system preserved transplant-quality tissue for as long as 63 days. The collaborative team of researchers also developed a way to monitor the quality of the stored tissue simply by testing a few drops of their patented storage solution.
New treatment for tennis elbow
Source: eorthopod.com
Steroid injections are no longer routinely recommended for lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow). Instead, physical therapists offer an alternative treatment in the form of something called iontophoresis.
In this article, the use of steroid injection is compared with iontophoresis delivered in two different ways. Iontophoresis uses a small electric current to drive steroid medication through the skin. It is a noninvasive method of reducing the pain of tennis elbow.
Prevent back, neck and shoulder pain from prolonged sitting and bad posture
Source: Natural News. com
Back, neck and shoulder pain is the natural result of prolonged sitting at work behind a computer, as is bad posture. This can cause headaches and excessive tension in neck, shoulders, arms, forearms, wrists, back, hips, thighs and legs.
Preventing back and neck pain while sitting is not an exact science as there are many differing opinions on the subject. However, there are some common denominators on which most chiropractors and other medical professionals agree
Treatment of traumatic anterior shoulder dislocation in patients older than 60 years
Source: MD Linx
The accurate diagnosis of associated injuries after traumatic anterior shoulder dislocation in patients older than 60 is critical for the recovery of shoulder function because more than half of patients had rotator cuff tears or anterior capsulolabral lesions, which may lead to recurrent shoulder dislocation.
Satisfactory clinical outcomes without recurrence were obtained after early detection of abnormalities and different treatment modalities based on associated injuries and the number of dislocations experienced.
Monitored heart bracelets may prevent sudden death in sport
Source: Science Daily
The use of heart bracelets connected via ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) to a system of tracking and monitoring could prevent cases of sudden death in sports activities. It could also enable an early detection of cardiac abnormalities, the prevention of certain muscle injuries and the improvement in health care times to the athlete.
The possibility of sudden death can begin to take shape with cardiac abnormalities detectable until 60 minutes before cardiac arrest occurs. The use of these bracelets enables to control these anomalies, and other aspects such as cardiac abnormalities generated by the consumption of doping substances, thus improving the completeness and reducing the costs of today’s sport controls.
PRP treatment aids healing of elbow injuries say researchers
Source: Medical Xpress
As elbow injuries continue to rise, especially in pitchers, procedures to help treat and get players back in the game quickly have been difficult to come by. However, a newer treatment called platelet rich plasma (PRP) may pose hope, according to researchers presenting their findings at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s Specialty Day meeting in San Francisco.
