Did you know that sports participants who do not wear mouth guards have up to a 60 times greater likelihood of suffering hard tissue trauma, and up to an eight times greater likelihood of soft tissue trauma? Do you have children who participate in sports? Do your patients participate in sporting activities? Do you have loved ones or family members who play sports? Are you the team doctor for a sports group? Are you a coach or trainer? Do you play sports?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then you must read on.
Chiropractors know that our patients may suffer musculoskeletal and orofacial injuries in participating in sports. Fortunately, most of these injuries are preventable or are minimized with education, protective gear, or immediate treatment. Unfortunately, too many of these injuries are suffered by children.
Here are some interesting facts about children and sports:
Chiropractors are more likely to be involved in some aspect of sports-related care than their dental counterparts. As a consequence, chiropractors are naturally prepared to provide trauma and injury prevention instruction to all levels of sports participants. For example, since health care personnel are often not present at practices and sporting events in the schools or other organized sports, information on how to recognize and properly respond to sports-related injury is of keen importance.
Specifically, the two most common categories of injury are musculoskeletal and orofacial. Hence, the chiropractor can take a lead role and unite with a local dentist to educate patients, trainers and coaches to prevent and properly handle sports-related injuries.
Task #2: Find a dentist who is skilled in sports-related orofacial injuries. This can be accomplished by calling your local dental society. If this does not work out very well, contact the Orange County Dental Society of California (714-634-8944) and ask for assistance in finding dentists who have taken their Head Trauma and Injury Prevention for Coaches seminar.
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Darryl Curl, DDS, DC
Norco, California
doc_curl@ix.netcom.com
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