Preventing Catastrophic Injury and Death in Collegiate Athletes: Interassociation Recommendations Endorsed by 13 Medical and Sports Medicine Organisations
Parsons JT, Anderson SA, Casa DJ, Hainline B. J Athl Train. 2019 Aug;54(8):843-851. doi: 10.4085/1062-6050-54.085.
The Second Safety in College Football Summit generated interassociation consensus recommendations; including, this new set of recommendations on the prevention of catastrophic injury, including traumatic and non-traumatic death, in collegiate athletes. The background section reviews catastrophic injury patterns, policy developments, and prevention considerations. The document includes 6 recommendations and a checklist.
This is a great article and it highlights a lot of great recommendations that we can use to prevent different traumatic and non-traumatic injury to happen. One thing that stuck out to me in this article is most non-traumatic injury typically happens during the first week of activity of a transition period in training! Me being an athletic training student, I have witness many athletes becoming heavily fatigue during their first week of pre-season. I feel even with us as athletic trainers educating athletes, coaches, and staff that the transition period in training is important to may attention too, why are more and more non-traumatic injuries increasing? I think as health care professional, we can come up with more strategies within our setting to educate athletes what can potential happen during this time of training.
Overall, this is a great article and as I become a certified athletic trainer soon, these strategies will truly help to protect the athlete’s safety from non-traumatic injuries!