Athletic Advantage: Wrist Sprains
By: Alex Zannes
Updated: January 4, 2013
One of the most common injuries sustained in both contact and non-contact sports is a simple wrist sprain. In tonight's athletic advantage. Alex takes a look at why without the right treatment, this type of injury can become more complicated than you think.
Last week we told you about wrist injuries in cheerleading. But according to Travis Newberry, director of rehabilitation services at United Regional, falling on an outstretched hand, or foosh injuries, are not just limited to one sport. "Really any sport can injure the wrist. Because if you fall down and you try to break your fall, if your hand hits the floor hits the ground, you can potentially damage your wrist. Any type of injury where you're pushing on something or hitting something can also damage the wrist. And also people don't think about, Is football or other grabbing sports. When you're holding onto something or grabbing onto a stick, it can force the thumb back into the scaphoid and cause injury that way..."
One of the treatments for a scaphoid injury in your wrist is to apply a splint. Doctors say its important to get the correct treatment, because the phrase "it's just a sprain" couldn't be further from the truth, according to Newberry, "A sprain can actually be quite serious...In some cases a sprain can be more complicated to repair than a fracture of a bone. A sprain is a tear of tissue, so to say it's just a sprain, is to ignore a tear of your tissue."
And Newberry says the sooner you identify and properly treat a sprain, the better the chance of a speedy recovery, "a sprain where you have swelling and pain it's good to apply very simple principles. You need to rest it. When appropriate with a trainer or physician they will splint it or protect it as much as they can, Because the more you move it around there's more potential for injury, and then you also have ice to keep the edema down and compression to keep the edema from getting to pronounced..."
And doctors urge you to remember. There's no such thing as "it's just a sprain."
