Is Heading in Youth Soccer Dangerous Play?

Background: Soccer is among the most popular youth sports with over 3 million youth players registered in the U.S. Soccer is unique in that players intentionally use their head to strike the ball, leading to concerns that heading could cause acute or chronic brain injury, especially in the immature brains of children.

Methods: Pub Med search without date restriction was conducted in November 2014 and August 2015 using the terms soccer and concussion, heading and concussion, and youth soccer and concussion. 310 articles were identified and reviewed for applicable content specifically relating to youth athletes, heading, and/or acute or chronic brain injury from soccer.

Results: Soccer is a low-risk sport for catastrophic head injury, but concussions are relatively common and heading often plays a role. At all levels of play, concussions are more likely to occur in the act of heading than with other facets of the game. While concussion from heading the ball without other contact to the head appears rare in adult players, some data suggests children are more susceptible to concussion from heading primarily in game situations. Contributing factors include biomechanical forces, less developed technique, and the immature brain’s susceptibility to injury.

Conclusions: There is no evidence that heading in youth soccer causes any permanent brain injury and there is limited evidence that heading in youth soccer can cause concussion. A reasonable approach based on U.S. Youth Soccer recommendations is to teach heading after age 10 in controlled settings, and heading in games should be delayed until skill acquisition and physical maturity allow the youth player to head correctly with confidence.     

Judo: A Sport Fit for Everybody?

After a century-long tradition as an Eastern sport, judo has begun to attract some nontraditional Western fitness buffs. The reason: Judo may offer certain fitness benefits and present a low risk of serious injury compared with other contact sports.     

Sport Psychology: A Crisis of Identity?

Sport psychology is becoming a bona fide field of study, but psychologists are debating whether it is a research discipline or an applied science. Whichever the case, physicians may eventually be able to apply its principles when encouraging patients to exercise.     

Congenital Aural Atresia: What the Radiologist Needs to Know?

Congenital aural atresia (CAA) is characterized by hypoplasia or aplasia of external auditory canal associated with auricular deformity. It also embodies a spectrum of temporal bone abnormalities including anomalies of middle ear, ossicles, facial nerve, oval window, round window, mastoid pneumatization, temporomandibular joint and occasionally inner ear and vascular anomalies. The management in such patients is variable and consists of rehabilitative hearing aids or surgical correction depending on various patient factors like associated temporal bone abnormalities, degree of hearing impairment and laterality. Surgical management if planned, depends on the extent of associated temporal bone anomalies and hence necessitates comprehensive knowledge about the normal and abnormal anatomy of these structures. High resolution computed tomography (HRCT) is the optimal investigation which provides required anatomical information and plays a pivotal role in deciding the management strategy. This pictorial review aims to review the spectrum of anomalies involving critical structures in CAA on HRCT along with their clinical significance.     

Schädel-Hirn-Trauma und Sport

In virtually any sports discipline the participants are at risk to suffer traumatic brain injury. Injury may occur with accidental falls or with non-intentional collisions with other athletes. Boxing and other combat sports, however, are unique with intentional and voluntary infliction of traumatic injury on the combatant. Recently, the medical focus has shifted from accidental acute often fatal forms of traumatic brain injury to potentially hazardous chronic repetitive mild head injury, such as concussion and the possible relationship to neurodegenerative processes. In this review the main issues of acute and chronic neurotrauma related to sports activities are discussed. Because of the extreme popularity of sports worldwide the implications of head injuries are enormous.     

Herbal Supplements and Sport Performance

<正>KEY POINTS·Labels on dietary supplements can be mislead-ing.Containers mayinclude substantially more,but usually less,of the listed amounts of ingre-dients,and substances may be added?some ofwhich can cause failed doping tests for athletes?that are not listed on the label.     

Cervical Spine Alignment and Motion in the Acute Management of Potential Catastrophic Cervical Spine Injuries in Sport

The incidence of spinal cord injury in the United Statesis esti mated to be 11,000 newcases each year[1].Sport participation constitutes the fourth most common cause[1](approxi mately 8·7%)of these injuries overall