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The top-ranked orthopedic hospital in the nation, Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), has launched a new initiative, “Move Better Play Better”, which will provide free injury prevention resources to 50 high schools throughout the U.S. during the 2022-23 school year.

The “Move Better Play Better” program is comprised of risk factor screenings for student-athletes; educational workshops for parents, coaches and physical education teachers, and on-site or virtual support visits for key stakeholders. HSS will also provide priority access to a new injury prevention training app for coaches. Any high school in the nation can apply to join the program, as long as they do not have a full-time athletic trainer.

“High school sports have long been an important community pillar as they provide children with important social skills and health benefits,” said Joseph Janosky, DrPHc, MSc, PT, AT, Director, Injury Prevention Programs, HSS. “While injuries are common, the good news is that proper training can change this. Here at HSS, we have developed evidence-based injury prevention programs so kids can reap the benefits of sports with a reduced risk of getting hurt.”

Approximately 7 million students play high school sports with over 2 million injuries each year. Nearly 30,000 of those injuries result in hospital stays. The CDC believes that up to half of these injuries could be prevented with proper training and resources.

When schools have access to a full-time athletic trainer, their students see lower overall and recurring injury rates. Unfortunately, approximately two-thirds of U.S. high schools lack access.

Kids who endure sports injuries are more likely to miss school, suffer from mental health issues such as depression, and develop chronic orthopedic issues like arthritis that could increase risk of opioid dependency.

“We understand the devastating effects that injuries can have on our youth and we believe that we can help kids stay safe playing the sport of their choice by providing our resources and expertise directly to their schools,” said Janosky.

“Move Better Play Better” lives within the HSS Sports Medicine Institute’s Youth Sports Safety Program, which brings together sports medicine doctors, physical therapists and other experts to develop injury prevention programs aimed to keep youth athletes safe. Since the program’s inception in 2016, nearly 300,000 youth athletes, coaches and teachers have attended  injury prevention workshops. Since December 2021, over 1,000 youth athletes have participated in injury risk factor screenings.

“The HSS Sports Medicine Institute is committed to getting athletes of all ages back to their sports and we are especially proud of initiatives such as these that strive to help children embark on a lifelong journey of athletics,” said Andrew D. Pearle, MD, chief of the HSS Sports Medicine Institute.

The initiative was announced at the Project Play Summit on May 4 in Washington, D.C. Project Play is the flagship initiative of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, and aims to develop, share and apply knowledge that helps stakeholders build healthy communities through sports specifically access to quality sport activity for all children. The yearly Summit is the nation’s premier gathering of leaders building healthy community through sports.

Interested high schools can apply to join the Move Better Play Better Campaign here. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis through July 1, 2022. A brief letter of support from a school or district administrator is required as part of the application. Applicants who are not selected will receive access to a selection of free injury prevention resources.

Orthopedics This Week

New York Junior Tennis & Learning (NYJTL), and the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) will work together to promote and deliver injury prevention education and screening programs to NYJTL coaches, participants and select Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning programs.

“This is a huge opportunity for all of our coaches and families,” said Jay Devashetty, Director of Player Development at the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning, “I am particularly excited to see the positive impact this training will have on the long-term health and well-being of our kids.”

HSS is the world’s leading academic medical center focused on musculoskeletal health. HSS has been ranked No. 1 in orthopedics for 11 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report (2020-2021) and has also been among the top-ranked hospitals for both orthopedics and rheumatology for 29 consecutive years.

“We are extremely excited to partner with NYJTL on this very important initiative,” said Dr. Andrew Pearle, Chief of the Sports Medicine Institute at HSS. “Preserving the musculoskeletal health of young athletes is among our top priorities and this collaboration will provide NYJTL coaches with the resources they need to keep children throughout New York City safe and healthy.”

Through this partnership, NYJTL coaches and participants will learn about the health benefits associated with physical activity and how to maximize those benefits by reducing the risk of preventable injury. The cutting-edge injury prevention education and screening programs delivered by HSS will help to keep children on the court and promote long-term healthy living.

About New York Junior Tennis and Learning:

The mission of New York Junior Tennis & Learning is to develop the character of young people through tennis and education for a lifetime of success on and off the court. Since 1971, NYJTL has changed lives through tennis, education, healthy living, and character development programs. Today, it is the largest youth tennis and education non-profit in the nation, reaching 85,000 K-12 New York City youth. NYJTL celebrates the diversity of the children who participate in every program, providing three million hours of year-round tennis and education programming serving youth from all five New York City boroughs. All NYJTL Community Tennis and Afterschool programs are offered at no cost to participants.

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The Voice

As schools everywhere have shifted to virtual learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the HSS Sports Safety Program has turned its Learning Center into a virtual physical education (PE) platform for students. Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), the top-ranked orthopedic hospital in the United States, is expanding virtual offerings of injury prevention programs to school-aged children across the nation and throughout the world.

“We have continually refined our digital programs to teach kids proper movement mechanics to reduce and prevent injuries,” said James J. Kinderknecht, MD, primary sports medicine physician at HSS and co-medical director of the HSS Sports Safety Program. “We launched our online Learning Center in 2018, so we were able to rapidly shift to providing classes to help PE teachers during this uncertain time.”

Created in 2015 with a grant from HSS board member James Dinan and his wife, Elizabeth Miller, through the Dinan Family Foundation, the HSS Sports Safety Program has worked to reduce the risk of ACL injury by providing movement education workshops, community presentations, and online classes to more than 50,000 coaches, parents, and young athletes. All offerings have always been free.

Now, the Sports Safety Program has created brand-new motion health classes aimed at three age groups: grades 3 through 5, grades 6 through 8 and grades 9 through 12. The program’s Learning Center features new classes each day for each age group that will run through the end of the school year.

PE teachers can have their students participate in classes each day to ensure they are not only staying active but also learning how to improve their health by reducing their risk of injury.

“The HSS Sports Safety Learning Center is a great tool for a physical educator in our current state. I can provide my students with an HSS lesson that they can follow along with,” said Matthew Bassett, a PE teacher at San Jose Charter Academy in West Covina, California, who added that he appreciated that the certification of completion is sent directly to the teacher once each student finishes the required quiz at the end of each workshop.

Other teachers have also lauded the quality of the online courses. Thomas Hunt, head of physical education at the British International School of New York, stated that “the online PE classes are very engaging and accessible, allowing for new learning to happen as the students are keeping physically active.”

"Students have a unique opportunity to engage in high-quality daily physical education and health through this innovative program,” said Michael Desimone, health/physical education and athletic director at Charter School of Educational Excellence in Yonkers, New York. “The program meets the state’s mandated 120 minutes of physical education per week, as well as all three physical education learning standards.”

The courses can be found at https://sports-safety.hss.edu/.

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The top-ranked orthopedic hospital is expanding efforts to improve sports-related wellness nationwide, focusing its vast experience in treating injuries on developing programs that help young athletes avoid them. Approximately 28 million children and adolescents participate in organized sports each year in the United States.

Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), ranked #1 in the nation for orthopedics for the past nine consecutive years by U.S. News & World Report, and the Aspen Institute have extended and expanded their collaboration to explore and provide safety strategies and guidelines for children. Working together through the Institute’s Sports & Society Program and its Project Play initiative, the two organizations will research and develop evidence-based projects and provide content for communities, health and education leaders and parents.

HSS is now the exclusive sponsor of the Sports & Society Program in both the musculoskeletal medical/surgical service and the hospital categories.

"It is important for HSS to apply our knowledge to reduce the risk of injury and promote healthy, lifelong lifestyles for everyone, especially our children," said Louis A. Shapiro, president and CEO at HSS. "As a leader in musculoskeletal health, it is our responsibility and privilege to help renovate the role of healthcare in our society by harnessing our knowledge to serve broader populations."

Last year, HSS teamed up with the Aspen Institute to develop their Healthy Sport Index which is the nation’s first-ever tool that assesses the benefits and risks of participating in the most popular sports for high school students – all based on data and expert insights.

"We are aligned with the Sports & Society Program’s mission to convene leaders, foster dialogue and inspire solutions that focus on the development of healthy children and communities," said Laura Robbins, DSW, senior vice president, HSS Education Institute. "Since 2015, our HSS Sports Safety Program has been working to keep young athletes in the game by providing educational courses to help prevent injuries. Healthy communities begin with healthy children."

About Aspen Institute and Project Play
The Aspen Institute is a nonpartisan forum for values-based leadership and the exchange of ideas. Based in Washington, DC, the Institute also has campuses in Aspen, CO, and on the Wye River in eastern Maryland, and maintains offices in New York City and several other cities. An initiative of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program, Project Play develops, applies and shares knowledge that helps stakeholders build healthy communities through sports.

A new online education course regarding ACL injury prevention is now available on the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Learning Center, thanks to a partnership between the NFHS and Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS).  

The "ACL Injury Prevention" course is part of a sponsorship agreement between the NFHS and the NFHS Network, and HSS, the leading orthopedic hospital in the United States located in New York City. HSS is ranked No. 1 in orthopedics for the ninth consecutive year in 2018-19 by U.S. News & World Report. The course is available free of charge on the NFHS Learning Center at www.NFHSLearn.com. 

While the course is designed to help coaches reduce the risk of ACL injuries to their student-athletes, it can be beneficial for administrators, students, parents and others as well. The course deals with the causes of ACL injuries, how to identify and correct movement deficiencies that can lead to these injuries, and how to effectively lead a neurodynamic warm-up before practices and games. 

Through the partnership, the NFHS and HSS hope to build a program that delivers national awareness around ACL injury prevention and related sports safety information. 

"We appreciate the work of the experts at Hospital for Special Surgery to provide this tremendous resource for high school students, parents, coaches and administrators," said Dr. Karissa Niehoff, NFHS executive director. "These type of knee injuries can sideline athletes for long periods of time, so the availability of prevention strategies will be a tremendous resource for everyone involved in high school sports."

"We are thrilled to now offer our digital workshop to NFHS’ vast coalition of over 3 million people," said Joseph Janosky, director of HSS Sports Safety. "Since its creation, our program has positively impacted coaches by providing them with tools to reduce the risk of ACL injuries for young athletes."

As a part of the agreement, the NFHS Network will promote the ACL course throughout the year during the expected 100,000 events that will be streamed during the 2018-19 school year at www.NFHSNetwork.com. The NFHS Network, a joint venture between the NFHS and its member state associations, and PlayOn! Sports, is in its sixth year of streaming high school sports and activities through its first-of-its-kind, all-digital network. 

"This is a great opportunity both for the NFHS Network and for HSS," said Mark Koski, CEO of the NFHS Network and NFHS director of marketing. "Through advertisements and videos, we will be able to share the messages of ACL injury prevention with the thousands of viewers on the NFHS Network and also help to promote the online course. We look forward to this partnership with HSS."

Since its founding in 2007, the NFHS Learning Center has delivered almost eight million online education courses. The Coach Education Program started with two courses – Fundamentals of Coaching and First Aid for Coaches – and now boasts 65, including 31 that are available free of charge.  

In addition to 16 sport-specific courses for coaches, the Learning Center offers eight sport-specific officiating courses, as well as Teaching Sports Skills and AACCA Spirit Safety Certification.  In addition to the ACL Injury Prevention course, some of the other new free offerings are Protecting Students from Abuse, Understanding Copyright and Compliance, and Adjudicating Speech and Debate. 

The most popular course has been the Concussion in Sports course with four million courses delivered. Other popular free courses are Heat Illness Prevention, Sportsmanship, Sudden Cardiac Arrest, and Bullying, Hazing and Inappropriate Behaviors. 

"We are excited to add the new ACL Injury Prevention course to our Learning Center, and to be able to offer free of charge helps to ensure that more individuals will take advantage of this great resource," said Dan Schuster, NFHS director of educational services. "We appreciate the work of the HSS staff and the opportunity to offer the course to high school students, parents, coaches and others."

About the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS)
The NFHS, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, is the national leadership organization for high school sports and performing arts activities. Since 1920, the NFHS has led the development of education-based interscholastic sports and performing arts activities that help students succeed in their lives. The NFHS sets direction for the future by building awareness and support, improving the participation experience, establishing consistent standards and rules for competition, and helping those who oversee high school sports and activities. The NFHS writes playing rules for 16 sports for boys and girls at the high school level. Through its 50 member state associations and the District of Columbia, the NFHS reaches more than 19,500 high schools and 12 million participants in high school activity programs, including almost 8 million in high school sports. As the recognized national authority on interscholastic activity programs, the NFHS conducts national meetings; sanctions interstate events; offers online publications and services for high school coaches and officials; sponsors professional organizations for high school coaches, officials, speech and debate coaches, and music adjudicators; serves as the national source for interscholastic coach training; and serves as a national information resource of interscholastic athletics and activities. For more information, visit the NFHS website at www.nfhs.org.

The Aspen Institute publishes a Q&A interview between Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program, and Louis A. Shapiro, president and CEO of HSS.

HSS partnered with the Aspen Institute to release the Healthy Sports Index, the nation's first-ever tool to assess the relative benefits and risks of participating in the most popular sports for high school students, based on data and expert insights collected over two years.

Mr. Shapiro shares that two of his favorite aspects of the tool are the scope of the index and its flexibility. "Not only are the top 10 high school sports for boys and girls presented, but the index also provides recommendations for complimentary sports as well as educational materials, articles, and useful resources for each sport. In addition, the tool provides users with the ability to use a sliding scale to priorities the health benefits and risks of sports participation that represent them as individuals."

He explains why HSS invested in a tool meant to prevent injuries and keep people out of hospitals. "HSS has an obligation to apply our knowledge to reduce the risk of injury, promote healthy lifestyles, and maximize human potential across the lifespan for all individuals, but most especially our children."

Mr. Shapiro hopes that sports administrators and leaders at the community, regional and national levels are encouraged to learn from this tool and leverage its information to guide their own decision-making process as it relates to the long-term health and wellness of our children, using it as a "roadmap". This tool is a valuable addition to the public health education that is provided by the HSS Sports Safety program that works with community partners to reach over 1.5 million young athletes throughout the tri-state region.

Read the full Q&A at AspenProjectPlay.org.

For the first time, the public can identify in one place the relative benefits and risks of participating in the 10 most popular high school sports for boys and girls. Launched today, the Healthy Sport Index combines the best available data and expert analysis while allowing users to customize sport-by-sport results through their own health priorities for participation.

The Healthy Sport Index can be found at HealthySportIndex.com. The tool is a product of the Aspen Institute’s Project Play initiative, developed in partnership with Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) and with the guidance of an advisory group of medical doctors, researchers and other specialists related to sports health.

Each evaluated sport includes recommendations for complementary sports to play based on overall health and athletic skill development in a child’s primary sport. The Healthy Sport Index also provides tips and links to best practices in each sport that coaches and programs can use, recognizing that any sport can be delivered in a manner that produces positive health outcomes.

For each sport, the Healthy Sport Index analyzed three areas of health impacts on high school athletes:

• Physical Activity: How much are athletes moving their bodies at practice?
• Safety: How prevalent are injuries?
• Psychosocial: How has playing a sport changed the behavior of its athletes, such as through emotional, social and academic skills?

The evaluated sports for boys are baseball, basketball, cross country, football, lacrosse, soccer, swimming, tennis, track and field, and wrestling. For girls, the selected sports are basketball, cheerleading, cross country, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track and field, and volleyball.

Results assigned to each sport are based on an equal weighting for each category – one third for physical activity, one-third for safety, and one-third for psychosocial. On the front page of the Healthy Sport Index, users can assign the emphasis they want to place on each of the three categories and watch the list of sports below reorder itself.

Boys cross country and girls swimming had the healthiest sports by gender when applying equal weighting. The Healthy Sport Index is not intended to conclude which sports children should or should not play. Different sports offer different benefits, and different children have different health needs.

Also, how each sport experience is served differs from school to school, and team to team. No single experience is the same and some programs and coaches follow best practices more closely than others. A finding of lower emphasis on any of the three defined priorities does not imply that choosing that sport is detrimental, just that other sports may offer greater benefits based on data.

“Playing any sport is better than playing no sport,” said Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program. “Most parents and youth understand this. The Healthy Sport Index is a tool to help them to make the best decisions for them, so youth can get and stay involved in sports – hopefully for life. We owe them this resource, and we hope that schools, sport organizations, health and medical organizations, and other stakeholders use its insights to improve the delivery of sport experiences for youth.”

“The knowledge that has propelled HSS to world leadership in musculoskeletal health gives us the opportunity and responsibility to lead also in supporting personal fulfillment and injury prevention,” said Louis A. Shapiro, president and chief executive at HSS.  “The Healthy Sport Index is an example of how we are harnessing that knowledge to enable families everywhere to make the best-informed decisions based on their personal goals.”

Original and existing research analyzed also produced key findings from the data. Among the trends: boys generated more physical activity at practices than girls; boys started specializing in sports before girls; and youth in contact sports showed the riskiest off-field behavior.

About The Aspen Institute

The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. For more on Aspen, watch this video or visit our website: www.aspeninstitute.org.

One of the policy programs of the Aspen Institute, the Education & Society Programimproves public education by inspiring, informing, and influencing education leaders across policy and practices, with an emphasis on achieving equity for students of color and students from low-income families. For more, visit www.aspeninstitute.org/education.

Mount Pleasant Daily Voice reported that HSS Westchester is hosting a program on ACL injuries in youth athletes.

According to the article, HSS sports medicine surgeon Andrew D. Pearle, MD; physical therapist Laurey Lou PT, DPT, SCS, CSC; and program manager of HSS Sports Safety Jimmy Russomano; will address ACL education and treatment options.

Read the full article at mountpleasant.dailyvoice.com.

LeagueApps interviewed HSS director of Sports Safety Joseph Janosky MS, PT, ATC, about preventing overuse injuries in youth athletes.

For injured athletes, Janosky explained that rest should be an active component in their training regimen.

When discussing preventing ACL injuries, Janosky noted the importance of education and awareness. "Most people don't recognize there's a specific technique to running, cutting and changing direction," he said.

"We need to really embrace the education component and these primary interventions of what to do to avoid these issues altogether in the first place," he added.  

Additionally, Janosky said that there is current motion analysis technology available to analyze an athlete's speed and form while moving.

"[The technology is] largely only available to elite athletes… We need to take that technology and apply it in ways that's available on a widespread basis," said Janosky.

Listen to the full interview at blog.leagueapps.com.

NY1 health reporter Erin Billups continues her segment on ACL tears in the adolescent population with this second part focused on prevention. This clip features Danielle Svantner, HSS patient of Daniel W. Green, MD, MS, FAAP, FACS, and Frank A. Cordasco, MD, MS, who also tore her ACL playing soccer just like her sister Nicole.

Dr. Green explains that 6 to 16-year-old girls have higher rates of tears than boys because of "more flexible ligaments" and a greater "tendency to have knock knees". He believes that this trend can be stopped if athletes can be taught how to move differently. 

NY1 also visits an HSS Sports Safety event which focuses on ACL prevention.

"It's really important and we're not just talking about knees. So if a kid has better posture they're going to grow in a healthier way. If a kid has better control of their core they're going to be a better athlete. And if a kid has more stable legs they're going to be able to jump higher so be more controlled when they land," said Jimmy Russomano, manager, HSS Sports Safety, who helps train coaches and their teams at these events.

"ACL prevention programs can really be effective in decreasing the rate of ACL tears in the 30-40 percent range," said Dr. Green.

One year post-surgery, Danielle is back on the soccer field. "I feel much more secure about everything. I know how to control things now," she said.

Watch the full segment at NY1.com.

View the first part here.

Harlem World Magazine reported that HSS is partnering with Wendy Hilliard Gymnastics Foundation (WHGF) and GrowNYC to provide free and low-cost gymnastics programs in Harlem for children.

According to the article, the organizations will run a five-week gymnastics camp including workshops on sports safety.

Read the full article at harlemworldmagazine.com.

HSS sports clinician Joseph Janosky MS, PT, ATC, explained how organizers could prevent youth sports injuries in an article by LeagueApps.

Janosky explained that adding injury prevention as part of a coach's evaluation could be helpful.

"We know that over 90 percent of parents are seriously or extremely concerned with the safety of their children engaged in sports. An organizer who includes injury prevention in evaluations can then offer that as an example of their thoughtful, systematic response," he said.

"Look at movement quality, make sure rest and recovery are emphasized and actively incorporated into training, making sure hydration levels are high and footwear is appropriate," Janosky noted.

Read the full article at blog.leagueapps.com.

LeagueApps interviewed HSS sports clinician Joseph Janosky MS, PT, ATC, about the importance of education and training in preventing youth sports injuries.

"There's not a single curriculum in the United States that fully prepares educators to conduct motor skills training," said Janosky.

"Fundamental movements and the focus on injury prevention and risk management need to begin in elementary school," he added.

According to the article, Janosky and his team at HSS are developing resources such as a digital sports safety education series targeted to coaches, parents, athletes and sports organizers.

Read the full article at blog.leagueapps.com.