April is Youth Sports Safety Month. To raise awareness about sports injuries among young athletes across the country, the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) and the STOP Sports Injuries campaign are looking at an evolving trend to increase outreach - social media. The campaign has had a Facebook and Twitter page since its inception, but campaign coordinators are now trying some different avenues.

On April 4, the STOP Sports Injuries campaign hosted its first ever tweetchat, which was hosted by Dr. David Geier. People from all over the country participated in the hour-long discussion about overuse inuries. Some topics included nutrition and hydration, education for parents and coaches, tips on preventing kids from playing through pain, and terrific ideas related to single-sport specialization. A summary of the chat is available online. 

With the success of the first chat, AOSSM and STOP Sports Injuries plan to hold these tweetchats on a regular basis. Twitter has demonstrated to be a great forum for parents, coaches, media, healthcare providers, and athletes to express their views and ask questions. Our next tweetchat will address concussions in youth sports. Please join us on April 25 at 12:00 p.m. EST in what we expect to be a lively discussion. You can follow along and contribute by using the hashtag #SportsSafety.

On April 17 we hosted a webcast about youth sports injuries. Speakers included renowned sports medicine professionals, including James Andrews, MD; Peter Indelicato, MD; Christopher Harner, MD; Lyle Micheli, MD; and William Levine, MD. Each speaker dicsussed various injury prevention strategies for parents and coaches to use. The event created an opportunity for attendees to interact - live! - with these top team physicians. Check back soon on the AOSSM website to view the archived webcast.

What are you doing to help promote youth sports safety in your local community? Please join us in supporting Youth Sports Safety Month, and help keep kids in the game and out of the operating room.

We have all heard about the benefits of exercise for improving our health. But with long work days and busy family lives and personal obligations, setting aside time every day to exercise 30-60 minutes can be challenging. What if you could find ways to get exercise where you work? It is likely that improved health and increased exercise actually make you more productive while you're at work, so you might have added incentive. What steps can you take that could improve your physical fitness, your health and wellness, and even increase your work productivity?

• Use the stairs instead of elevators. If you have to go up several floors in your building during the day, you might as well exercise while doing it.
• Park toward the back of the parking lot and walk into and out of work. Don't circle the lot for minutes looking for a spot close to the front door. Park at the back of the lot and walk to the entrance. That extra 100 yards adds up if done every day.
• Start a walking club or fitness class with your colleagues. Running, walking, yoga, aerobics, and other forms of exercise with others will improve collegiality among coworkers. Meeting to do it together will provide motivation by making it less likely that you will skip the exercise sessions.
• Replace your office chair with a stability ball. It is not exercise, per se, but you can improve your core strength by using a Swiss ball as your office desk chair.
• Wear running shoes to work. Wear your dress shoes only when necessary. Not only will the running shoes help with walking longer distances from the parking lot or during breaks at the office, but they will also serve as a reminder to use them if you see them throughout the day.
• Break up exercise into small periods during breaks. While 30-60 minutes of walking is ideal, several 10-15 minute sessions can be effective as well. Look for breaks in your schedule and use them to perform some of your fitness activities.
• Keep some dumbbells or resistance bands at your desk. Similar to walking, weights and other forms of resistance training require little space or preparation time. A few exercises in each small break can add up to a complete workout.
• Replace email and the phone as a means of communication. Rather than pushing emails back and forth to coworkers, get up and walk to their desks. Talk in person. You might be surprised that you actually accomplish more in less time, and you will burn a few calories each time too!

Do you have any other ideas to stay active at your job? Share them here!

Written by David Geier MD, AOSSM Public Relations Chair

For a number of reasons, physical education programs in U.S. schools seem to be in a state of decline. In the current economic climate, government funding for education programs has decreased, so physical education programs have often been cut. Also, with schools needing to demonstrate success academically, teachers and administrators frequently worry about any activity that pulls students out of the classroom.

But do physical education classes really hinder a student's academic performance? It has been suggested that physically fit children are not only healthier, but they perform better on standardized academic tests.

A novel approach

Mitchell Elementary School, an underprivileged school in Charleston, South Carolina wanted to be proactive and find a way to maintain academic performance without sacrificing physical activity.Their school nurse, Glennis Randazzo, applied for grants that would fund education and equipment through the PE4Life program. The school partnered with physicians at the Medical University of South Carolina to study the success of the program. Dr. Carly Scahill, a pediatrics resident at MUSC and one of the study's lead authors, was also involved in the program. Prior to implementation of the new program, students underwent 40 minutes of physical education class per week. It increased to 40 minutes, five days per week under the new program, with the goal of combining physical activity and intellectual stimulation.

Stressing both physical and mental exercise

The younger children performed developmentally appropriate activities during the program, like riding scooters while being asked to trace shapes with their movement. Older children performed more active and intellectually challenging activities like practicing multiplication while climbing a rock wall. For example, if a student's left foot was on a "two" and left hand was on a "four," then he would reach his hand to number eight.

Academic results

Schools administer the Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) test each fall. Prior to the new physical exercise program, only 55% of students achieved their spring test goals. After a year in the program, 68.5% of students met their goals.

Next steps

Increased time for physical activity doesn't have to mean less time to learn; it's just learning in a new format. So what is next? Do we wait and hope that more schools try it? Dr. Scahill wants to expand the scope of the study, matching two schools based on demographics and academic performance and seeing if a school that utilizes the program would outscore the ones that did not. More longitudinal data would also be helpful to determine if these programs apply to students at all levels.

What are your thoughts on the program? Can PE help improve test scores?