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28 J. Legal Aspects Sport 151 (2018)
Overuse Injuries in Youth Sports: Legal and Social Responsibility

handle is hein.journals/jlas28 and id is 151 raw text is: Journal ofLegalAspects ofSport, 2018,28, 151-169 https://doi.org/I0.18060/22569 © Phoebe Friesen, Bethany Saul, Lisa Kearns, Kathleen Bachynski, Arthur Caplan Overuse Injuries in Youth Sports: Legal and Social Responsibility Phoebe Friesen, Bethany Saul, Lisa Kearns, Kathleen Bachynski, and Arthur Caplan* Youth sports-related injuries represent a major public health challenge, and overuse injuries, which result from repetitive microtrauma and insufficient rest, are a particular and growing concern. Overuse injuries are increasingly prevalent within youth sports, can lead to lifelong disabilities, and are almost entirely preventable. We explore the question of whether parents, who have been shown to significantly influence their children's sports experiences and behaviors, can be held responsible for overuse injuries. We also discuss the role of other actors, including medical practitioners and coaches, and the duties that they may have to prevent such injuries to child athletes. We argue that, in many cases, contributions to overuse injuries are the result of non-culpable ignorance, and that a better way to help prevent overuse injuries may be to enact policies that educate parents, as well as schools, coaches, and organizations, about overuse injuries. I. Overuse Injuries in Youth Youth sports-related injuries represent a major public health challenge. Young people ages 5 to 24 years account for nearly two-thirds of sports- and recreation- related injuries in the US (Sheu, Chen, & Hedegaard, 2016). Sports injuries in children can damage growth mechanisms and have the potential to result in long- term harm (Shanmugam & Maffulli, 2008). Of the many types of injuries associated with youth sports, overuse injuries especially are a growing concern. The term overuse to describe sports injuries has been applied inconsistently in the medical literature, referring sometimes to a mechanism of injury and sometimes to a category of injury diagnosis (Roos & Marshall, 2014). Epidemiologists have recommended using overuse exclusively in regard to the mechanism of injury. As such, overuse injuries can be defined as * Phoebe Friesen, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Ethox Center at the University of Oxford; email: nhoebe.friesenrndnh.ox.ac.uk. Bethany Saul is a JD candidate at New York Universi- ty (NYU) Law School. Lisa Kearns, MS, MA, is a senior research associate in the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU School of Medicine. Kathleen Bachynski, PhD, is a Rudin postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Medical Ethics and Humanities at NYU. Arthur Caplan, PhD, is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and Director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU School of Medicine. 0

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