Soccer

Soccer Knee Injury Increases Risk of Arthritis

Sports injuries in youth can lead to arthritis at a relatively young age, according to research presented at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting Oct. 29 – Nov. 2 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Researcher studied 94 female soccer players who had sustained anterior cruciate ligament tears at the average age of 19. Twelve years later, 34 percent of the study subjects had x-ray findings consistent with osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis. Whether or not the women had surgical reconstruction after their injuries made no difference.

Osteoarthritis is the deterioration of cartilage that cushions bones in the joints and is usually associated with middle-aged and older people. The average prevalence for people age 25–34 is about 7 percent.

"It has been shown that female soccer players are at higher risk than men of sustaining anterior cruciate ligament injuries," said lead investigator Harald P. Roos, MD, of University of Lund in Sweden. "An anterior cruciate ligament tear in young female soccer players seems to be an important risk factor for developing early radiographic osteoarthritis."

The American College of Rheumatology is the professional organization for rheumatologists and health professionals who share a dedication to healing, preventing disability and curing arthritis and related rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases. For more information on the ACR’s annual meeting, see http://www.rheumatology.org.

A concussion may occur when someone's head strikes an object. A person with a concussion may lose consciousness or suffer memory loss and appear confused. In soccer, concussions make up 2-3% of all injuries. This is the same rate as for American football!

Am J Sports Med 1998 Mar-Apr;26(2):238-41

Concussion Incidence in Elite College Soccer Players

Boden BP, Kirkendall DT, Garrett WE Jr.

Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA.

A unique aspect of soccer is the use of the head for directing the ball. The potential for resultant head injuries has been the focus of discussions worldwide. Prior work has attributed neuropsychologic deficits to the cumulative effects of heading, without evaluating concussion rates in soccer players. We prospectively studied the seven men's and eight women's varsity soccer teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference during two seasons to document concussion incidence. The 29 concussions diagnosed over the 2 years in 26 athletes, 17 (59%) concussions in men and 12 (41%) in women, resulted from contact with an opponent's head (8, 28%), elbow (4, 14%), knee (1, 3%), or foot (1, 3%); the ball (7, 24%); the ground (3, 10%); concrete sidelines (1, 3%); goalpost (1, 3%); or a combination of objects (3, 10%). Twenty concussions (69%) occurred in games; none resulted from intentional heading of the ball. The basic incidence was 0.96 concussions per team per season. The overall incidence was 0.6 per 1000 athlete-exposures for men, and 0.4 per 1000 athlete-exposures for women. By concussion grade, there were 21 (72%) grade 1, 8 (28%) grade 2, and no grade 3 concussions. These findings suggest that concussions are more common in soccer than anticipated and that acute head injuries may have potential for long-term neuropsychologic changes.

Am J Sports Med 2000 Sep-Oct;28(5):659-62

Avoidance of Soccer Injuries with Preseason Conditioning

Heidt RS Jr, Sweeterman LM, Carlonas RL, Traub JA, Tekulve FX.

Wellington Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio 45219, USA.

The effect of a preseason-conditioning program was studied to evaluate its influence on the occurrence and severity of soccer injuries. Three hundred female soccer players (ages 14 to 18 years) were studied over a 1-year period. Forty-two of these players participated in a 7-week training program before the start of the season. The type, mechanism, and severity of the injury, when the injury occurred, the number of games or practices missed, and type of shoe worn were recorded. All injuries occurred in the lower extremities, with 61.2% occurring at the knee and ankle. Student's t-test evaluations revealed that the trained group experienced a significantly lower incidence of injury than the untrained group (P = 0.0085). Although not statistically significant, the trained group also had a lower percentage (2.4%) of anterior cruciate ligament injuries compared with the untrained group (3.1%). These results suggest that this type of conditioning has a significant influence on lowering the incidence of injury in female adolescent soccer players.

Am J Sports Med 2000 May-Jun;28(3):385-91

 

Sex-Related Injury Patterns Among Selected High School Sports
Powell JW, Barber-Foss KD.
Med Sports Systems, Iowa City, Iowa, USA.

This cohort observational study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that the incidence of injuries for girls participating in high school sports is greater than that for boys. From 1995 through 1997, players were included in our study if they were listed on the school's varsity team roster for boys' or girls' basketball, boys' or girls' soccer, boys' baseball, or girls' softball. Injuries and opportunities for injury were recorded daily. Certified athletic trainers reported injury and exposure data. Based on 39,032 player-seasons and 8988 reported injuries, the injury rates per 100 players for softball (16.7) and for girls' soccer (26.7) were higher than for baseball (13.2) and boys' soccer (23.4). The knee injury rates per 100 players for girls' basketball (4.5) and girls' soccer (5.2) were higher than for their male counterparts. Major injuries occurred more often in girls' basketball (12.4%) and soccer (12.1%) than in boys' basketball (9.9%) and soccer (10.4%). Baseball players (12.5%) had more major injuries than softball players (7.8%). There was a higher number of surgeries, particularly knee and anterior cruciate ligament surgeries, for female basketball and soccer players than for boys or girls in other sports.

Percept Mot Skills 2000 Feb;90(1):319-25

Injuries Due to School Sports Accidents in 4 to 13-yr.-old Children

Kingma J, Ten Duis HJ.

Department of Surgery, University Hospital Groningen, The Netherlands.

505 kindergarten and primary school children from 4 to 13 years of age were treated for school sports injuries during the period 1990-1997. The incidence of injuries increased statistically significantly from .5 per 1,000 children 4- to 5-yr.-old to 4.8 injured children per 1,000 in 12- to 13-yr.-old. 59% of the injuries involved upper extremities; 35% of these were in the wrist region. 33.5% of the injuries were of the lower extremities, with 50% being of the feet and 36.4% of the ankle. Accidental falls were the main situation (53%) in which school sport accidents occurred. Nearly 65% of these accidental falls occurred at the ground level; the remaining accidents (35%) occurred when the child was working on an apparatus, e.g., parallel bars, balancing beam, side horse. The 4- to 5-yr.-old children were the most vulnerable to accidental fall (67%). A statistically significant increase in injuries in ball sports was observed from 4- to 5-yr.-olds (0%) to the 12- to 13-yr.-olds (28%).

Skeletal Radio 1991;20(6):437-40

Radiographic Findings of Degeneration in Cervical Spines of Middle-Aged Soccer Players

Kurosawa H, Yamanoi T, Yamakoshi K.

Research Institute of Applied Electricity, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.

Twelve amateur veteran soccer players (average age 40.1 +/- 5.4 years), who began playing in their teens and who were admitted with symptoms most likely to be related to cervical spondylosis, were examined by cervical radiography. Abnormal radiographic findings included: calcification of anterior longitudinal ligament (25%), anterior (75%) and posterior vertebral spurs (75%), ossicle between spinous processes (75%), calcification of nuchal ligament (Barsony) (58%), ossicle on spinous process (25%), and bony spur of Luschka's joints (83%). It was shown in the stress distribution by finite element method analysis that the stress in heading the ball was applied mainly to the lower parts of the cervical spine. The results of this analysis also corresponded well with some of the radiographic findings.

30% of the former players complained of permanent problems such as headache, dizziness, irritability, impaired memory and neck pain. 35% of the active and 32% of former players had from slightly abnormal to abnormal EEG compared with 13 and 11% of matched controls, respectively. There were fewer definitely abnormal EEG changes among typical 'headers' (10%) than among 'nonheaders' (27%). The former players were also subjected to cerebral computed tomography (CT), a neuropsychological examination and a radiological examination of the cervical spine. One-third of the players were found to have central cerebral atrophy and 81% to have from mild to severe (mostly mild to moderate) neuropsychological impairment. The radiological examination of the cervical spine revealed a significantly higher incidence and degree of degenerative changes than in a matched control group.  In the case of a positive indication, surgical treatment leads to a faster recovery in professional athletes.