Dr. Richard E. Rodenberg, M.D., Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH) & OSU College of Medicine

• “Sports medicine doctors are primarily non-surgical specialists in muscle and bone systems, working from Little League and high school athletics up to the professional and Olympic athlete
• “Sports medicine cases requiring non-surgical treatment and therapy have risen from a little over 1,000 in 2002 to over 9,000 in 2010.”
•  “The most common complaints are knee pain, back pain, concussions, stress fractures, and foot and ankle pain and sprain.”
• “The injuries most likely to cause injury are football and soccer, followed by basketball, track, and baseball. Cheerleading, volleyball, dance, and gymnastic and a host of others also contribute, with marching band being a least common source.”
• “Nationwide Children’s will be the only pediatric hospital in the country with two facilities dedicated to sports medicine and orthopedic care, offering both non-surgical and surgical alternatives.
• “Our second floor will be completely dedicated to rehabilitation, with a track, rehabilitation gym, dance therapy, throwing cage, and machines to analyze and improve athletic motions, ensuring athletes can and will be rehabilitated and better able to prevent future injuries.”
•  “Thirty million young people participate in U.S. sports every year.  1.6 million to 3.2 million suffer a traumatic brain injury [concussion].  300,000 suffer a loss of consciousness. Over half go unreported.  These injuries can be life threatening and a source of great concern to doctors in the field.”
• “If an athlete suffers Second Impact Syndrome--a second injury before the first is healed-- brain swelling can occur, resulting in 50% mortality and 100% morbidity. There will be some permanent effect for the rest of the athlete’s life in every case.”
• “It is important to have rest, even from schoolwork, to ensure recovery starts.”
• 80 – 90% of victims recover in the first ten days. Some 240,000 to 525,000 will not and require longer term treatment.”
• “We primarily work on headache control, sleep hygiene, with some anti-depressant medication. These young people can in some cases have their reason for living taken away if they can’t play sports, and they can suffer situational depression.”
• “Participation in sports can only be allowed again after the athletes are asymptomatic, with a 5 step process in place to ensure that.
•  “It is important that we create awareness of concussions.  The NFLs campaign has helped.  Kids will lie in order to keep playing, and some coaches will play injured kids even when they know of the concussion.  We need to work to help the good coaches respond, and get the bad coaches off the field so they can’t endanger lives.”

Dr. Rodenberg’s presentation generated many questions about the facility and the treatment of sports injuries. In March 2012, we can look forward to the opening of a center that will provide great service to some of Dublin’s most active and energetic young minds.