Athletes often train without adequate recovery time leading to physical stress and a decreased performance.
overtraining
Athletes often train without adequate recovery time leading to physical stress and a decreased performance. This is known as nonfunctional overreaching (NFOR) (Myrick, 2015). This can be seen in symptoms like fatigue, anxiety, reduced motivation, and concentration (Myrick, 2015). Overtraining syndrome (OTS) is when decrease in performance lasts for months to years even with adequate rest (Myrick, 2015). Prevention of overtraining and overreaching is important to avoid physical stress and injury.
Spinal column fractures
Spinal column fractures (SCFs) injuries range from pain, long term disabilities, or death. In the US approximately 8,000 spinal cord injuries occur annually including fracturs and dislocations (Winters & Nuttal, 2015). Simple fractures to the spinal column may not cause injury to the spinal cord and only requires pain management. Compression fractures and dislocations can place the spinal cord at significant risk for injury. Nurses need to ask patients if they experience numbness or weakness in addition to vertebral column pain to assess for sensation and pain. To access motor function as the patient to shrug their shoulders against resistance, assess bilateral hand grip strength, raise each leg off the bed, plantarflex and dorsiflex feet against resistance (Winters & Nuttall, 2015).
congenital hip dysplasia
Congenital hip dysplasia (aka dysplasia of the hips (DDH)), can occur congenitally or later in childhood it entails underdevelopment or alignment of the femoral head and acetabulum. The most common sign is limited abduction of the hip. This condition if undiagnosed does not cause pain until in person’s 40s or 50s due to onset of osteoarthritis. A mechanical compression of the hip occurs if the fetus pelvis becomes fixed to the maternal pelvis (Blaszko-Helming, 2015). Girls are more likely to be affected by DDH than boys, cerebral palsy is associated with DDH, and there is a hereditary component to DDH. The left hip is the most common to involve full dislocation, only 20% of DDH are bilateral (Blaszko-Heming, 2015). If correction of the dislocated hip is made early a normal hip will result; however, if the child begins walking and the diagnosis has been missed the deformities are not reversible.
septic arthritis
Septic arthritis is unfortunately becoming more common; it is an infection of the joint cavity often referred to as infectious arthritis. Recent joint surgery, prosthetic joint, skin infection, diabetes, and intra-articular injection are all risk factors for septic arthritis (Oliphant, 2015). Common clinical findings include fever, joint immobility, erythema, acute joint pain, swelling, and tenderness. The knee is the most common joint affected. Elevated white blood cell count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C- reactive protein are expected to be elevated indicating an inflammatory response (Oliphant, 2015). Joint aspiration is considered “gold standard” in the diagnosis of septic arthritis. Patients often undergo surgical interventions, long term antibiotic use, and follow up appointments with infectious disease and orthopedics to manage this orthopedic infection.
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