What Are the Preventative Care and Rehabilitation Techniques for Stress Fractures in Collegiate Athletes: A Critically Appraised Topic
Date
2-14-2024
Faculty Mentor
Christopher Clark, Kinesiology; Jennifer Burgett, Kinesiology; David Kean, Kinesiology
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Submission Type
Conference Proceeding
Location
12:30-12:40pm | Houston Cole Library, 11th Floor
Description
Context
The two greatest concerns for stress fractures are the loss of practice and competition time and deconditioning due to physical inactivity. The athletic population is one of the most common to experience this type of injury. While lifetime prevalence within the athletic population is approximately 10% for stress fractures, this number is greatly increased to 21% within the collegiate athlete population. This critically appraised topic examines the preventative care and rehabilitation techniques for stress fractures in collegiate athletes.
Methods
A computerized search was conducted in October 2023. The search terms used were “stress fracture”, “bone stress injury”, “medial tibial, stress syndrome”, “prevention”, “rehabilitation”, “return to play”, and “epidemiology”. Electronic databases used were SportsDiscus and PubMed through the Jacksonville State University online library and Google Scholar. Inclusion criteria included articles written in the English language, peer reviewed articles, and studies focusing on return to play protocols. Exclusion criteria included articles written before 2003, studies regarding medial tibial stress syndrome, and articles concerning preadolescent and professional athletes. Validity of the selected studies was determined using the PeDRO scale, STROBE scale, and AMSTAR 2 scale. One author independently reviewed the studies, scored each paper, and reviewed the completed appraisals to come to a consensus on the study quality.
Results
The literature search retrieved 517 articles and 511 were excluded based on the exclusion criteria, resulting in six studies. One article found that athletes with severe stress fractures were more susceptible to longer return to play times. Furthermore, another study found that female athletes suffered prolonged and more painful return to play. In addition, athletes with stress fractures can greatly decrease their return to play time by going through a gradual increase in impact followed by a gradual return to play. Additionally, a study concluded using preventative care such as knowing and individual athlete’s threshold, limiting overuse activity, breaks in an athlete’s schedule, and later starting age in athletics prior to an injury, can decrease the injury's severity.
Conclusions
Stress fractures are a common occurrence in collegiate athletes and can interrupt competitive season, whiles have a traumatic effect on practice and competition times. Our critically appraised topic found that the higher the severity of the stress fracture and females have a longer return play time. By using a gradual increase in activity levels and prevention strategies can decrease interruptions in a collegiate athlete’s season and practice times.
Keywords
student research, kinesiology
Rights
This content is the property of Jacksonville State University and is intended for non-commercial use. Video and images may be copied for personal use, research, teaching or any "fair use" as defined by copyright law. Users are asked to acknowledge Jacksonville State University. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@jsu.edu.
Disciplines
Kinesiotherapy
Recommended Citation
Smith, Chase, "What Are the Preventative Care and Rehabilitation Techniques for Stress Fractures in Collegiate Athletes: A Critically Appraised Topic" (2024). JSU Student Symposium 2024. 21.
https://digitalcommons.jsu.edu/ce_jsustudentsymp_2024/21