Sports Injury

The difference between a Sports Injury and Recreational Injury

Sports Injury

A sports injury is one that occurs during an organized team and or individual activity, such as tennis, swimming, track, football, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, event riding, auto racing.

A sports injury can be difficult psychologically and emotionally for someone who has dedicated immense amounts of time and energy into achieving athletic goals. An injury can leave you without an outlet to cope with stress, as well as frustrated and irritated, wondering why did this happen to me? For these reasons, treating the emotional and psychological factors after a sports-related injury is just as important as treating the physical injury. Sports psychology aims to provide athletes with that support and treatment needed to navigate through daily life.

Recreational Injury

A recreational injury is an injury sustained while just having fun roller skating or roller blading, jumping on a trampoline, going down a slide, or racing your go-cart.

The Leading Sports and Recreational Activities that Cause Brain Injury, Concussion and Chronic Pain are:

• Cycling
• Boxing
• Football
• Wrestling
• Baseball and softball
• Basketball
• Water sports, including diving, scuba diving, surfing, swimming, water polo, water skiing, and water tubing
• Powered recreational vehicles, including ATVs, dune buggies, go-carts, gas-powered scooters, mini bikes, and dirt bikes
• Soccer
• Skateboards and non-powered scooters
• Fitness, exercise, and health club participation
• Winter sports, including skiing, sledding, snowboarding, and snowmobiling
• Horseback riding
• Gymnastics, dance, and cheerleading
• Karate
• Golf
• Roller and ice hockey
• Tennis
• Racquetball
• Other unspecified ball sports
• Trampolines
• Rugby and lacrosse
• Roller- and inline skating
• Ice-skating.

Please note that the above list does not include recreational activities that caused injury but didn’t lead to a doctor’s office or hospital visit. Also, activities and the frequency of related injury may vary according to recreational trends, locale, and time of year.

Concussions in Sports Injury and Recreational Injury

Over the past few years, concussions in sports have dominated the news and become a major public concern, with football concussions receiving the most attention. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each year in the United States, there are 3.8 million concussions in sports, exercise, and other recreational activities. When the brain has had enough time to heal and the right precautions have been taken, symptoms of a concussion can disappear within a few weeks of injury. However, after several weeks some symptoms may persist. This is referred to as Post Concussion Syndrome (PCS). For student athletes, concussion symptoms can negatively impact both academic performance and social functioning.

See Symptoms of Concussion and Post Concussion syndrome

Sports Injury Pain

Pain is similar to a warning light on your car. It is an indication that something is wrong in the body. Pain helps you to react and respond. Acute pain is an early warning signal. For example, acute pain tells us to react to the heat of fire so that you can remove your hand to avoid getting burned.

When you first got injured, you experienced acute pain. The emotional component of acute pain is anxiety, which is adaptive to help you.Chronic pain serves no purpose. Chronic pain is long lasting, often having a life of its own. Its psychological component is depression. Thus, chronic pain and depression often go hand in hand. Chronic pain is also called post-traumatic pain, since the source of the depression and pain has often happened at a much earlier time. Since chronic pain affects you emotionally, psychologically, physically and spiritually, successful treatment needs a more complex program.

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