The OJSM Hot Corner

Sports Specialization remains one of the most debated topics in Sports Medicine today. While the idea of having a youth athlete focus year-round on a single sport to maximize his/her potential in that particular sport sounds reasonable, it has not been shown to be an effective strategy at accomplishing its goal and may come at a cost of mental and physical injury to the athlete. Dr. Rachel Meyers, PT, DPT & Dr. Gregory Walker, MD from Children's Hospital Colorado join us to discuss their study further exploring the connection between Sports Specialization and mental health using a recently validated tool designed to identify a highly specialized athlete, the Wisconsin Sport Specialization Questionnaire (WISSQ).

Achilles tendon ruptures have historically been an injury of 40-50 year olds. The recent uptick in Achilles ruptures in younger athletes has been a point of concern in the Sports Medicine community, particularly when some of the NBA's brightest stars have sustained this devastating injury in their 20-30s. Dr. Nirav Pandya, MD, Pediatric Sports Medicine Specialist from UCSF joins us to discuss his group's findings as well as the viral response to his study.

The advent of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) legislation has changed college sports profoundly. NIL now extends beyond the collegiate ranks to high school athletes and younger. While the financial stakes now in play for young athletes have had obvious impacts on the sports they play, what may be less obvious are the ramifications for Sports Medicine providers caring for these athletes. We welcome Dr. George Richard, MD from Rothman Orthopaedics Florida & Dr. Kevin Farmer, MD from University of Florida to discuss the changing landscape for those of us caring for youth athletes in this age of NIL.

Calcific tendinitis is a common, painful condition that can cause intense pain and dysfunction of the shoulder. However, in spite of its commonality, there is much we do not understand about it including why it occurs. One thing we do know is that, in most cases, the calcium will just go away, however we do not have any way to predict how long that may take to occur. A variety of treatment options are available to treat calcific tendinitis including several non-surgical options such as physical therapy, cortisone injections, and barbotage, as well as surgery. Because the natural history of calcific tendinitis is one of self-resolution, surgery is typically reserved for long-standing cases where non-surgical treatments have been tried and failed. Authors Ryan Gilbert, BA & Dr. Albert Lin, MD from University of Pittsburgh Medical Center join us to discuss their study looking at success rates of these 3 non-surgical options as well as the success rates for patients who opted for surgery as an initial treatment or after failing at least one non-surgical option. If you've failed one of the non-operative treatment, should you try another one or just go to surgery?

Lateral Extra-Articular Tenodesis (LET) has become an accepted adjunct to standard anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction to help provide additional rotational stability to the knee and lower the risk of re-tears. The classic situation to perform this surgery would be at the same time as an ACL reconstruction in a patient with a high degree of rotational instability or in a patient who has already had ACL surgery and re-torn. However, might there be a role for LET performed as a standalone procedure? A subset of patients following ACL surgery will have a knee that is very stable in the anterior-to-posterior (front-to-back) direction but continues to demonstrate some degree of rotational instability. Could an LET performed in isolation provide these patients with that additional rotational stability and thus lower their risk of another injury, or is that a crazy idea? Click here to read the article.