Injury Epidemic: UConn and Elsewhere

[fireford]

“What kind of exercises do you do in the weight room to make sure you don’t get a concussion?” coach Geno Auriemma said. “There’s nothing, you know. What do you do to make sure that your teammate doesn’t push a kid into you, a teammate knocks you on on the ground and you hit your head or where you catch your thumb and a kid shirt and break your thumb in the first first game of the year? So some of these are just weird.”

‘Just weird’: Rash of injuries hits women’s college hoops

HARTFORD, Conn. — UConn star Azzi Fudd was battling for rebounding position in the first half Sunday when she banged knees with Georgetown’s Ariel Jenkins. Fudd left the game …

www.sandiegouniontribune.com

 

[JordyG]

It's worrisome to know that this stuff is happening to all of these great young women in WCBB.

 

[hoopsnloops32]

I feel like a lot of it is sexism in sports medicine and so many recovery and prevention and even fixes being designed around men and male athletes first. I know its getting better and progress has been made but really I don't see how there hasn't been more done to figure out how to protect female athletes bodies, especially their knees, better.

 

[LarryLegend]

is it possible that the players of 10,20,30 years ago were getting concussions and nobody realized it?

 

[Mdoggie]

is it possible that the players of 10,20,30 years ago were getting concussions and nobody realized it?

None of those players can remember.

 

[Cuango]

I feel like a lot of it is sexism in sports medicine and so many recovery and prevention and even fixes being designed around men and male athletes first. I know its getting better and progress has been made but really I don't see how there hasn't been more done to figure out how to protect female athletes bodies, especially their knees, better.

Wow!

 

[stamfordhusky]

is it possible that the players of 10,20,30 years ago were getting concussions and nobody realized it?

There were almost certainly many undiagnosed concussions decades ago. Players would hit their head, see stars and feel dizzy for a while, and then go back into the game when the symptoms subsided.

 

[stamfordhusky]

I feel like a lot of it is sexism in sports medicine and so many recovery and prevention and even fixes being designed around men and male athletes first. I know its getting better and progress has been made but really I don't see how there hasn't been more done to figure out how to protect female athletes bodies, especially their knees, better.

There have been tens of millions of dollars, maybe hundreds of millions, devoted to looking for a fix for the female ACL injuries. Unfortunately it’s a very complicated situation, and there may not be any solution.

Do some googling and you can find articles on a number of different initiatives devoted to the subject, sponsored by the NCAA and pro leagues and the Santa Monica Project (PEP) etc.

 

[ccwarrior]

There have been tens of millions of dollars, maybe hundreds of millions, devoted to looking for a fix for the female ACL injuries. Unfortunately it’s a very complicated situation, and there may not be any solution.

Do some googling and you can find articles on a number of different initiatives devoted to the subject, sponsored by the NCAA and pro leagues and the Santa Monica Project (PEP) etc.

Exactly. It will be a struggle to fight structural issues with the hip-knee angle and stress forces on many female knees.

 

[hoopsnloops32]

There have been tens of millions of dollars, maybe hundreds of millions, devoted to looking for a fix for the female ACL injuries. Unfortunately it’s a very complicated situation, and there may not be any solution.

Do some googling and you can find articles on a number of different initiatives devoted to the subject, sponsored by the NCAA and pro leagues and the Santa Monica Project (PEP) etc.

I’m well aware of the research and initiatives you’ve are referencing having worked to fund money for a few in the past myself.

That doesn’t mean women start from an even playing field when it comes to their health and performance. From sneakers to stretches and weight lifting a lot of it built around mens performance first.

Two things can be true at once. There is a concerted effort to figure prevent a serious injury that plagues women more than men and that sports medicine has institutional sexism that inhibits women from being on an even playfield when it comes to sports performance.

 

[tkaes]

I feel like a lot of it is sexism in sports medicine and so many recovery and prevention and even fixes being designed around men and male athletes first. I know its getting better and progress has been made but really I don't see how there hasn't been more done to figure out how to protect female athletes bodies, especially their knees, better.

Admittedly I don't know, but I think this is pure conjecture on your part. If you can cite some published studies I'd love to read them, otherwise I think your statement is as sexist as you claim sports medicine is.

 

[Bone Dog]

Admittedly I don't know, but I think this is pure conjecture on your part. If you can cite some published studies I'd love to read them, otherwise I think your statement is as sexist as you claim sports medicine is.

Of course it’s conjecture. But @hoopsnloops32 has a point. It’s not an unreasonable conjecture. We don’t typically agree, but I don’t think this is a foolish question to raise about what we’re seeing. Also, I think it’s not just about doctors who may tend to approach women’s health issues from a frame of reference based on men’s health. Also the full array of sports medicine workers, physical therapists, trainers etc. may well operate under a similar disadvantage when it comes to women athletes. I don’t know it to be true in regard to sports injuries. But there is some evidence to suggest similar imbalances in other health related fields.

 

[hoopsnloops32]

Admittedly I don't know, but I think this is pure conjecture on your part. If you can cite some published studies I'd love to read them, otherwise I think your statement is as sexist as you claim sports medicine is.

There’s quite a bit of research done on this

Published just last year: Methodology Review: A Protocol to Audit the Representation of Female Athletes in Sports Science and Sports Medicine Research

Unfortunately, the conspicuous imbalance of female-specific SSSM research is well known. For example, Costello et al. (2014) surveyed nearly 1,400 studies involving more than 6 million participants published in three principal SSSM journals across a 2-year period. Overall, women contributed just 39% of the total accumulated participant pool, with 4%–13% of studies (depending on the journal) exclusively investigating female participants, compared with 18%–34% focusing entirely on men (Costello et al., 2014). A smaller audit of three journals over a 5-month period reporting SSSM studies found a similar proportion (42%) of women across the total accumulated participant count, with just 4% of studies investigating only women, while 27% involved male-only participant cohorts (Brookshire, 2016). Across SSSM topics, the bias against female participants was most striking in studies investigating strategies to enhance athletic performance; only 3% of all participants were women (Brookshire, 2016). Female-specific SSSM research shows little evidence of mirroring the recent increase in the popularity of women’s sport. Cowley et al. (2021) examined 5,261 studies across six SSSM journals including 12.5 million participants and reported similar findings to Costello et al. (2014) 7 years earlier. Women accounted for 34% of overall participants, with 6% of studies focusing exclusively on women compared with 31% studying men in isolation (Cowley et al., 2021).

 

[Littlemin]

I am not a doctor but there is a fair amount of seemingly credible info out there discussing ACL injuries in women’s sports vs. mens sports. One such article, from Yale Medicine, which appears to be directly affiliated with the university, is pretty much in line with all of them. In reading, their conclusion is there are 2 to 8 times more ACL tears in women athletes than men.
Several reasons are offered; the wider female pelvis; less muscle mass around the knee in women leading to more instability in the knee, putting pressure on the ACL, a strong but somewhat rigid ligament; and finally the fact that women have less testosterone than men, key in increasing muscle density, and more estrogen, which the article says may cause looseness in ligaments and tendons, making them more prone to injury.
There also seems to be a school of thought that generally men land differently than women, that many women may land or even pivot without bending the knees as much as they should.
I offer this for discussion only, I don’t pretend to have any real knowledge other than doing some reading on the subject.

 

[Millenial23]

Interesting argument/theory by Cori Close that this slew of injuries is related to the pandemic - less "prehab" she said.

 

[LwrcasefaN]

Some of the knee and joint issues may be just heavier usage and earlier usage in a player's career. Bob Kersee, famed track coach, was very methodical about not training his young sprinters physically....too fast. And the other part is...there was a time when players wouldn't sit out with some of these injuries. Not saying that was a good idea or bad idea.

 

[HopJim]

I am not a doctor but there is a fair amount of seemingly credible info out there discussing ACL injuries in women’s sports vs. mens sports. One such article, from Yale Medicine, which appears to be directly affiliated with the university, is pretty much in line with all of them. In reading, their conclusion is there are 2 to 8 times more ACL tears in women athletes than men.
Several reasons are offered; the wider female pelvis; less muscle mass around the knee in women leading to more instability in the knee, putting pressure on the ACL, a strong but somewhat rigid ligament; and finally the fact that women have less testosterone than men, key in increasing muscle density, and more estrogen, which the article says may cause looseness in ligaments and tendons, making them more prone to injury.
There also seems to be a school of thought that generally men land differently than women, that many women may land or even pivot without bending the knees as much as they should.
I offer this for discussion only, I don’t pretend to have any real knowledge other than doing some reading on the subject.

Have posted this previously, but there is a group of physical therapists in my area that have shared data for over 15 years that indicates high school and college female athletes are 1.8 to 3 times as likely to have ACL and related knee tears than men. This study indicates that the issues are not unique to any one sport since basketball, lacrosse and other run intensive sports were studied. Not as scientific a process as some of the work that was referenced but all seem to indicate the same results.

 

[LarryLegend]

Obviously not pertinent to concussions, but IMO the fact that most of these young athletes are from an early age playing the same sport year round with no down time, has to be contributing to certain of these injuries

 

[oldanintheway]

is it possible that the players of 10,20,30 years ago were getting concussions and nobody realized it?

Pardon the "Old Timer's Story" but playing for UConn's football team in '74 had a preseason scrimmage at The Mansfield Training School(I believe that what it was called then), an over anxious freshman, pulled me down by the back of the jersey after I had relaxed as I was nearly out of bounds, whacked my head first on the ground, barely remember, had that "stare" sitting in front of the locker, with my pads on after everyone else had pretty much was out of their gear, finally, someone, helped me with my pads off. I was concussed "obviously", not knocking the training staff, but back then don't really remember much of any protocol.
I'm sure that's the way it was across the board in college athletics.

 

[LarryLegend]

Pardon the "Old Timer's Story" but playing for UConn's football team in '74 had a preseason scrimmage at The Mansfield Training School(I believe that what it was called then), an over anxious freshman, pulled me down by the back of the jersey after I had relaxed as I was nearly out of bounds, whacked my head first on the ground, barely remember, had that "stare" sitting in front of the locker, with my pads on after everyone else had pretty much was out of their gear, finally, someone, helped me with my pads off. I was concussed "obviously", not knocking the training staff, but back then don't really remember much of any protocol.
I'm sure that's the way it was across the board in college athletics.

they probably taped an aspirin on your head and sent you back out there

 

[cabbie191]

Admittedly I don't know, but I think this is pure conjecture on your part. If you can cite some published studies I'd love to read them, otherwise I think your statement is as sexist as you claim sports medicine is.

Would everyone agree that even the NCAA owned up to their treating women less equitably than men when it came to their national tournaments?

If so, then I think it’s a reasonable assumption to assume there is also sexism when it comes to sports medicine, just as there is in virtually every aspect of life.

Remember that it is only a handful of college basketball programs that even begin to treat their men’s and women’s teams evenly.

 

[Littlemin]

Would everyone agree that even the NCAA owned up to their treating women less equitably than men when it came to their national tournaments?

If so, then I think it’s a reasonable assumption to assume there is also sexism when it comes to sports medicine, just as there is in virtually every aspect of life.

Remember that it is only a handful of college basketball programs that even begin to treat their men’s and women’s teams evenly.

You really want to paint sports medicine with the same brush as the NCAA on an assumption? I searched Women’s ACL sports injuries and got first page hits from Mayo, Hopkins, Yale Medical, UNC Greensboro School of Health and Human Sciences, Journal of Orthopedics and Orthopedic Surgery, Mass General, just to name a very few. There is plenty of good info out there from very credible sources; I would respectfully suggest you do a little research regarding your assumption.

 

[brownale]

Surely with all our technology someone could come up with a light weight, non-restricting knee support unit that would help the ACL problem.

 

[cabbie191]

You really want to paint sports medicine with the same brush as the NCAA on an assumption? I searched Women’s ACL sports injuries and got first page hits from Mayo, Hopkins, Yale Medical, UNC Greensboro School of Health and Human Sciences, Journal of Orthopedics and Orthopedic Surgery, Mass General, just to name a very few. There is plenty of good info out there from very credible sources; I would respectfully suggest you do a little research regarding your assumption.

I don't dispute that there is some great research being made as relates to sports injuries for both women and men. And I wasn't trying to equate this issue directly to how the NCAA handled the men's and women's tournaments - it was cited as an introduction/example to the larger observation that there is sexism in all walks of life.

(Side notes about sexism being prevalent: New Zealand's prime minister resigned unexpectedly today, and according to her aides, one of the factors in her decision is the zapping energy it takes to deal with media questions and commentary that are never directed at male politicians. I was on the faculty at the Univ of Maine - women professors were routinely paid less than their male colleagues, and this isn't unusual for other universities and almost all other professional fields.)

Both the UConn men's and women's teams were at Seton Hall this week. The women played in an arena that seats less than 1,300; the men played in an arena that seats over 18,700. That kind of discrepancy is not unusual for schools that are in major basketball conferences and where they play games in multiple venues. The women get the smaller courts. I understand the economics of it - men's games attract more fans and generate more dollars. This is why Auriemma has said that he's okay with the men's bball coaches at UConn earning more than he does, even though he has a much better record.

What I didn't really make clear in my original post is that in my opinion, the issue of sexism in sports and how that plays out in the rubric of sports medicine isn't just the research side. It's also the investments schools are willing to make in facilities and staff.

When Pat Summitt was starting out, she personally did the team's laundry after games because there was no one else who had that responsibility. I don't know for sure but I think it would be a reasonable assumption that in those days, Tennessee didn't invest as much money in taking care of the Lady Vols health issues (preventive and curative) as they did their men's team, and I think it's likely that the same was true at UConn when Geno and CD began their tenure.

 

[uconnfan68]

Surely with all our technology someone could come up with a light weight, non-restricting knee support unit that would help the ACL problem.

It's called a camp chair.

 

[oldude]

Since misery loves company, here’s a story of woe to consider. A couple days ago Lewis and Clark CC WBB in Portland, OR was forced to cancel their season due to a rash of injuries. The team started the season with 11 healthy players…..Sound familiar? Injuries & illnesses rapidly cut their roster down to 6-7 healthy players.

LCCC continued to play all their games through the holiday break, hoping to add back players after the holidays. In fact, the situation got worse, forcing the school to shut down the WBB season for good.

 

[Kat]

One thing that should be done, starting today, is to have the referees call a hard foul every time a player hits their opponent in the head/face with an elbow, arm, or hand. That's if it is deemed unintentional. If it is deemed intentional, eject the player. I've really noticed an increase in players (not just the Huskies) getting smacked in the head. It's a contact sport, and players will bump and knock each other around but there should be enforced penalties for players who come up swinging their elbows with impunity. These are skilled athletes who can control themselves better if they have incentives to do so.

 

[Fore!]

I feel like a lot of it is sexism in sports medicine and so many recovery and prevention and even fixes being designed around men and male athletes first. I know its getting better and progress has been made but really I don't see how there hasn't been more done to figure out how to protect female athletes bodies, especially their knees, better.

Aside from genetic reengineering of their skeletal structure, not sure much, if anything, can be done to prevent knee injuries. Single sport overload from an early age is thought to be a contributing factor.

 

[Skeets]

Pardon the "Old Timer's Story" but playing for UConn's football team in '74 had a preseason scrimmage at The Mansfield Training School(I believe that what it was called then), an over anxious freshman, pulled me down by the back of the jersey after I had relaxed as I was nearly out of bounds, whacked my head first on the ground, barely remember, had that "stare" sitting in front of the locker, with my pads on after everyone else had pretty much was out of their gear, finally, someone, helped me with my pads off. I was concussed "obviously", not knocking the training staff, but back then don't really remember much of any protocol.
I'm sure that's the way it was across the board in college athletics.

Hmmm, I played high school football a couple of years earlier than that and concussions were diagnosed and protocols executed. Certainly not as sophisticated as today, but they did exist. This could be the difference between high school "kids" and college "men".