On February 10th, 2015, the Supporting Athletes, Families, and Educators to Protect the Lives of Athletic Youth (SAFE PLAY) Act was introduced to the Senate and House. As sport participation grows, particularly in the youth population, this bill becomes increasingly important for athlete safety and the continuation of sport programs. The bill highlights several approaches to achieve this goal, including an emphasis on high quality research, community education, and federal support for school districts. More specifically, the bill focuses on athletes’ exposure to heat, CPR and AED training, concussion protocols, and energy drink consumption.

The SAFE PLAY Act would direct the CDC and U.S Department of Health and Human Services to recommend the development of emergency actions plans for student athletes, report to Congress on the number of sports related fatalities and catastrophic injuries as well as their cause, and develop and disseminate information about the health risks associated with exposure to excessive heat and humidity. The Act also would provide means to educate athletes, parents, and coaches on how to avoid heat-related illness, develop information on the ingredients used in energy drinks, potential side effects, and recommend guidelines for the safe consumption of energy drinks by students.

As far as federal funding, the bill would assist school districts in developing and implementing a standard plan for concussion safety and management and set up concussion management teams to respond to incidents on campus, developing and implementing an excessive heat action plan to be used during all school-sponsored athletic activities that occur during periods of excessive heat and humidity, and provide access to critical resources to teach students across the country the life-saving skills of CPR and how to AEDs.

The National Athletic Trainers Association played a pivotal role in the introduction of this legislation, and is dedicated to building support of the bill. As members of the NATA, it is our responsibility to reach out to local legislators and ask them to support this essential bill. We must be proactive and reach out to our school administrators, parent advocates, coaches, team physicians, and all other members aiming to keep youth athletes safe. Let’s generate some support!

            To get involved, please visit the link below.

            http://www.nata.org/News%20Release/nata-supports-safe-play-act

 
Emma Nye LAT, ATC

A recent post on an anonymous twitter account devoted to athletic training sparked a debate among some in the profession. The post in question was a picture that posted rules on who gets taped before a football game (the picture has since been removed). Two of the rules were “if you don’t play, you don’t get taped” and something about importance to the team dictates if you are worthy of getting taped.

What puzzles me is how this is even a debate. We are health care professionals and according to our professional organization’s code of ethics we can not discriminate against any patients. While, I sympathize with some of the arguments that these rules are to avoid the so-called “tv tape-jobs” and athletes who only getting taped on game-days, how the rules are worded hurts the respect our professional organizations have fought for years for us to obtain.

It is one thing to deny tapings based on someone not having a previous injury, only wanting it to look cool, or for someone who has not done rehab, but it is unacceptable to base a patient’s treatments on his/her athletic ability or importance. If your first and fourth string QB ask to get taped and neither has an injury or did rehab, they both better be treated the same (regardless of whether your decision is tape or not tape them).

One of my favorite hashtags on twitter is #at4all because as a profession it is something we take great pride in (being able to translate our skills to multiple different populations), but I challenge every athletic trainer to think of the meaning when they use it.

My final thought is that if we are going to complain about lack of respect from other health care providers, we need to start acting like the other health care providers, an emergency room physician would not treat based on who gets the most carries in a football game, so neither should we.

#togetherwemustdobetter #at4all #at4at

Joe Vogler LAT, ATC

Disclosure: The thoughts in this blog post are my own and may not represent the views of ISU Athletic Training or other members of ISU Post-Professional AT Program.

Recently, people have been challenging the traditional use of ice. Some argue that it is no longer the miracle cure to musculoskeletal pain, but in fact it may be detrimental to performance or recovery. Others however argue that cryotherapy aids in recovery and reduces delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). In the Athletic Training setting, cryotherapy is utilized on a daily basis. Cryotherapy is applied to acute musculoskeletal injuries to prevent secondary injury caused by swelling and to decrease pain. While it makes sense that we would want to prevent further swelling in an acute care situation, are we handing our patients ice for every ache and pain after practice? Check out the article, Top 10 Reasons Not to Ice, in “The Athletic Trainers News Feed” Click here

Cryotherapy is commonly used by athletes to prevent DOMS and is often recommended by Athletic Trainers. While the literature does demonstrate reduction of inflammatory markers that are known to cause DOMS, research is still lacking on whether the decrease in inflammatory markers actually leads to decreased recovery time. Cryotherapy seems to “blunt inflammation through reducing local metabolism and inducing vasoconstriction.” Click here The question then becomes, do we want to slow down metabolism and decrease blood flow?

I don’t recommend CWI because I believe that the inflammatory markers and blood flow in sore muscles is necessary to a certain extent to allow for muscle repair. Cryotherapy, whether it is cold water immersion or an ice bag, seems counterintuitive to the healing process. While I do think that it is important to prevent excessive inflammation and supplemental DOMS, I do not think cryotherapy is the answer. It may be detrimental to decrease the temperature and affect the cellular changes following exercise. Why are we so afraid on inflammation? The body knows how to regulate itself, instead of slowing down a natural process, why not promote it with movement? On the other hand, there is no research to show that cryotherapy has a negative impact and many athletes believe that it helps. Should we recommend other options or support their decision?

As Athletic Trainers we want to do all we can to help. We want to decrease their pain so we give them ice. However, the literature does not fully support the use of cryotherapy for recovery. Much of the literature involving cryotherapy uses different exercise protocols to induce DOMS, therefore the effects cannot be generalized to all types of exercise. There also exists a lack of functional outcomes in the cryotherapy literature, making the results subjective in nature and/or involving a placebo effect.

So what do we do as Athletic Trainers? Do we continue to support or recommend the use of cryotherapy? In my clinical practice, I recommend a different approach to recovery. When my athletes come to me after practice reporting muscle soreness, I don’t usually recommend ice. Instead, I recommend active recovery, foam rolling, and stretching. Active recovery (10 mins of light biking or running) and foam rolling have been shown to reduce blood lactate concentration, therefore preventing the resulting DOMS. (click here, click here, click here)

I would love to hear from fellow Athletic Trainers on their common practice pertaining to cryotherapy. Feel free to comment below.

Check out this video for some more insight: http://youtu.be/0UmJVgEWZu4

Michael Neal LAT, ATC

A Post-Professional Athletic Training Education Program is designed to prepare athletic trainers for advanced clinical practice to strengthen care, outcomes, and overall quality of life for our patients.  The Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE) has developed six core competencies that should be addressed in a Post-Professional program. One of these core competencies is interprofessional education (IPE) and collaborative practice.  Interprofessional education is an important part to an athletic trainer’s professional development to provide the best care for our patients.

Here at Indiana State one of the ways we are accomplishing this competency is through an event we have named Interprofessional Halloween. As individuals in the class we have had to choose a profession that could work with athletic trainers. We each are to research our chosen profession, come to class dressed in our profession, and then intermingle during class to learn about each profession.  The purpose of this class is to think about athletic training in collaboration with other professionals. Some of the professions my classmates and I have chosen include sports dietitian/nutritionist, dermatologist, physician extender, sport psychologist, and even insurance coordinator. When you think about IPE what professions come to mind? Is there a limit to who could work with athletic trainers to provide the best patient care?

As students in a professional, post-professional program, or as practicing athletic trainers, we need to improve on our knowledge of healthcare professions and collaborate with these professions. At the high school level, are we working with school social workers, nurses, counselors or even teachers to provide holistic care? At the collegiate level are we collaborating with physical therapist, sport psychologist, nutritionist, and physician extenders to coordinate services? In the non-traditional setting, are we using physician assistants, insurance coordinators, and occupational therapist to administer healthcare? Let’s work together as athletic trainers to keep an open mind towards other professions and continue collaborating our efforts as healthcare professionals.

- Marissa Yorgey LAT, ATC

Reference:

http://caate.net/post-professional-programs/

Every year the National Athletic Trainers’ Association sends out multiple reminders about paying dues for the upcoming year and as good members each year we pay without questioning what the money is being used for. In general, students pay 100 dollars or more and professional members pay well over 200 dollars. Considering there are over 40,000 members, this adds up to millions of dollars being paid by members for dues to the profession. This led me to wonder about how the NATA was spending all this money and what are my dues doing for me as a NATA member.

I decided to explore the NATA website to find out how the dues we pay are helping our profession. My initial search led me to the dues structure page. First of all, the due payment includes membership to the national, district and state associations. Secondly, for certified athletic trainers, 34 dollars goes towards the BOC recertification fee. Finally, according to the website “approximately 11.8% of dues are allocated for lobbying.”


The second place I ended up was the member benefits page, where I found an array of resources designed to help individual athletic trainers as well as the overall profession.  The first benefit is the NATA Career Center, which provides a comprehensive job listing service for both employers and employees. The second benefit is the professional and career development, which essentially is 10 free CEU’s ($150 value), as well as other discounted educational opportunities such as webinars. The third benefit is presence at both the state and national government institutions to ensure the regulation of our profession. Another benefit is networking through social media venues, as well as the online membership directory. Finally, and arguably one of the biggest benefits of paying dues is the accessibility to many publications. These publications include the Athletic Training Education Journal, Journal of Athletic Training, Member Monthly, NATA News, Position Statements, Consensus Statements, Official Statements, Support Statements and Range of Motion.


The money paid in dues every year is being put to good use. Some may argue that dues are not doing enough however, if you are taking advantage of your membership benefits to its fullest potential, I have no doubts. The NATA is working hard to advocate for our profession, to protect our profession in government, provide educational opportunities and materials for continuous development, as well as networking resources and a comprehensive career center. The NATA is working hard for our profession and we, as members, need to work harder. More members need to get involved with the profession and take advantage of our membership benefits. After these benefits are being used to their fullest potential, we can begin to make more demands from our organization.

 -Ashley Crossway ATC, LAT