New Research Could Help Reduce Knee Injuries In Female Athletes
CINCINNATI -- Work by researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center could help reduce the significant number of knee injuries that occur in female athletes.
Tim Hewett, Ph.D., director of the Sports Medicine Research Center at Cincinnati Children's, found that as girls go through puberty and grow dramatically in height and weight, they do not experience the significant increase in strength and power that boys do as they go through puberty.
This may explain why adolescent female athletes suffer serious knee ligament injuries at a rate four to six times greater than male athletes in the same sports, as Dr. Hewett demonstrated in a landmark study published in 1996.
For a study presented Saturday, June 1, at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in St. Louis, Dr. Hewett analyzed existing studies related to neuromuscular changes in boys and girls during and following puberty. An analysis of the Adolescent Growth Study from the University of California "demonstrated significant correlations between age and the standing long jump and vertical jump of boys but not of girls," says Dr. Hewett.
To reduce the gender gap in knee injuries, Dr. Hewett recommends dynamic neuromuscular training, which involves plyometrics (jump and balance training). In 1999, he published a study proving that this kind of training program, which enhances strength and stabilizes the knee joint, can reduce the rates of knee injuries in female athletes to mirror those of males.
"The ability to quantify athletic ability and break down complex movements with immediate, real-time feedback is an unparalled benefit of dynamic neuromuscular analysis (DNA) training," says Dr. Hewett. "By teaching female athletes better control, we can avoid rehabilitation that is not only expensive and grueling but also takes time away from a student's focus on academics."
More than 10,000 debilitating knee injuries occur in female athletes at the varsity intercollegiate level each year, and about 40,000 occur in high school athletes. More than 100,000 women participate in collegiate sports each year, and about 2.7 million girls participate in high school sports programs. One of every 10 who participates in collegiate sports can be expected to blow out her knee, at a cost of $20-25,000 per injury.
"The combination of the geometric increase in female sports participation and the higher rate of injury in female athletes has led to a rapidly growing gender gap in knee injury incidence in sports such as soccer, basketball and volleyball," says Dr. Hewett.
Contact Information
Jim Feuer, 513-636-4656,
jfeuer@chmcc.org
