Sports Trauma

For this blog I am going to keep things simple and focus on sports trauma. Trauma is a huge part of sports and a big topic of discussion in athletic training. It is a part of every sport an athlete plays. Here are some characteristics of sports trauma.

Trauma: A physical injury or wound sustained in a sport and produced by an external/internal force

Tissue Properties:
-Load: outside forces acting on tissue
-Stiffness: the ability of a tissue to resist a load
-Stress: the internal reaction/resistance to an external load
-Strain: extent of deformation of tissue under loading
-Deformation: change and shape of a tissue
-Elasticity: property that allows a tissue to return to normal following deformation
-Yield Point: where its elasticity is fully exceeded
-Mechanical Failure: exceeding the ability to withstand stress and strain, causing tissue to break down

Tissue Stress: 
-Compression: a force with enough energy to crush tissue
-Tension: a force that pulls or stretches tissue
-Bending: a force on a horizontal beam or bone
-Torsion: a force caused by twisting in opposite direction from the opposite ends of structure
-Shearing: a force that moves the parallel organization of the tissue

Injuries:
-Muscle strains
-Muscle cramps
-Muscle soreness
-Contusions
-Ligament sprains
-Dislocations/subluxation
-Tendinitis
-Tenosynovitis
-Bone fracture
-Stress fracture
-Osteoarthritis
-Bursitis-
-Capsulitis/synovitis
-Myofascial trigger points
-Epiphyseal injury
-Apophyseal injury
-Neuropraxia
-Neuritis

I tried to bring some terminology in to use for this blog and I hope most of these terms are new to you. It is crazy to think that our tissues can with stand so much and allow athletes to perform at such a high quality of play and do what they do. Who knew there was so much to sports trauma and body tissue?

 

Work Cited

McGown, A. T. "Blunt Abdominal and Chest Trauma." Athletic Therapy Today 9.1 (2004): 40-1. ProQuest. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

Contemplating Controversy

While there are quite a few controversies in the field of athletic training, one that caught my eye was the controversy over how a topical injury heals quickest. This controversy was brought to my attention in one of my athletic training classes at Michigan State University. When my professor asked the class whether we thought that a scrape healed quicker in a more dry condition or a more wet, moist condition I said the more dry condition. Was I correct?

As it turns out I was not correct; a scrape does not heal more rapidly in a dry condition. This was the more common idea among athletic trainers for some time and some still believe it to be true. The thought behind this is that the wound is being kept dry so that it does not attract bacteria and get infected. In doing this a scar begins to appear, making it seem as the scrape is repairing quickest. The scab will continue to change during this repair process until the scrape is no more and new healthy skin is in its place.

The other side to this controversy is that a scrape heals  quicker in a more wet condition. More and more athletic trainers are beginning to see this as the best way to repair a topical injury such as a scrape. In keeping the scrape more wet and moist the scab appears to not be forming all that well and it looks rather disgusting, but it supposedly is suppose to heal twice as fast as a scrape in a dry condition. Experiments have been done to compare the two and it seems as though this claim is very true.

This is not a huge controversy in the field of athletic training, but a controversy I found rather interesting. It seemed like such a simple disagreement, but turned out to have some depth to it. I hope that most of you found this controversy to be interesting and further your interest in the field of athletic training.

 

Work Cited

Zahir, M. "The Nature of Wound Healing, with Special Reference to Scab Formation." University of Oxford, Exeter (United Kingdom), 1965. England: ProQuest. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

Reading Artifacts

I chose a roll of tape as my artifact for athletic training. I made a critical reading response for it and through doing that I was able to see how this artifact can teach people about the field of athletic training. You may being thinking to yourself, how can a roll of tape teach me about the field of athletic training? Well it most certainly can I and I am about to explain how.

First off, athletic training is a job that can be done in many different ways. There are many aspects to the job that make it what it is. The roll of tape reflects this by demonstrating that there are many different ways to tape an ankle or another part of the body, but these ways depend on the type of injury that has taken place. This is like the job of an athletic trainer. There are different ways to treat situations and get things done. An athletic trainer must be on his/her toes so that he/she knows how to handle the situation.

Secondly, athletic training is a job that requires one to have a continued attention to what is going on. There is always a possibility of an injury taking place and whether you see it or not an injury is an injury. Being able to identify when and how an injury happened is key to being a good athletic trainer and providing the proper care. Paying close attention to the activity at hand can be what separates an average athletic trainer from a good athletic trainer.

The last thing a roll of tape can teach you about athletic training is that is a tough, demanding job. You have to be able to work in all sorts of weather and different conditions. And certain weather and conditions can mean added work or more detailed, focused work for an athletic trainer. For example, if it is a super hot humid summer day and the football team has practice, the athletic trainer has to take a bunch of factors into consideration to calculate if it is safe to practice outside that day or move practice to a safer more suitable environment. Depending on how many injuries a team has can also make work more demanding on the athletic trainer. More injuries means more tape ankles, more ice bathes, more stretching, and so on. Athletic training is a job that requires you to act on your feet and adjust accordingly to what is going on around you.

Athletic training is like a roll of tape, when you unraveling it or get more into the job you realize there is so much that makes up the job. I hope the three aspects of athletic training above helped you understand the field of athletic training in a more detailed way.

 Work Cited

Hendrick, Carrie Rayette. "The Therapeutic Effects of Kinesio(TM) Tape on A Grade I Lateral Ankle Sprain." Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2010. United States -- Virginia: ProQuest. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

Answers to Interview Questions

I apologize for the delay with posting Matt Lang's responses to the questions I had for him, as far as the writing process goes for athletic trainers. Matt's responses were very helpful and informative, and for the most part were what I thought he would say. I hope you find them as interesting as I did.

- How much writing would you say you do in an average day's work as an athletic trainer?
Response: Writing is a part of the every day job of being an athletic trainer. You have to be on top of things and make sure your documenting things in the correct way. Overall, it is hard to say exactly how much writing is done on a daily basis, but it definitely takes up a good portion of time when I am not caring for my athletes.

  - What does this writing consist of?
Response: Writing for me consists of keeping track of a lot of information. Which is the case for other athletic trainers as well. Whether it is documenting an injury to a player, personal player information, making safety procedures, or what not there always is some sort of information that needs to be taken down. These are all slightly different forms of writing, but maintain the idea of keeping the information in an organized way so that if information needs to be found or looked back on it can.

- How is your writing put together? 
Response: My writing for the most is to get down all the necessary information that documents what happened or how things are suppose to happen. For the average person, what I write may not be that easy to understand and follow, but for athletic trainers it is very easy. It really is not all that complicated but there are some hard to understand terms that are written to describe the situation. Some of these hard to understand terms are medical terminology.

- Is writing/communication a vital part to being an athletic trainer? 
Response: It is a vital part of being an athletic trainer! Probably the most important part other than the direct care that is given to the athletes. If something is written down or documented wrong things could get very bad. For example, if an athletic trainer documents an injury wrong the care or treatment given to that athlete could be wrong or not done in another way when it should be. It is the most important way of COMMUNICATION among athletic trainers and their staff.

Matt Lang's responses were helpful for myself personally in understanding how important writing is for athletic trainers. I underestimated the vital importance of writing and documentation as the main way of communicating among athletic trainers. This opened my eyes to the ways writing can affect the quality of work done by athletic trainers and in a broader view, jobs as a whole. Hope this helps you understand the writing process of an athletic trainer and how important it is for them.