I'm sharing some interesting perspective posed on the Youth Sports Parents blog regarding young athletes and reconstructive ACL surgery.
Mark Hyman's post refers to a recent study highlighted in the New York Times that sought to identify whether patients fared better with the surgery or just with physical therapy rehabilitation.
The study doesn't really come down on side over the other, but Hyman makes a keen observation that if a young athlete is contemplating such serious surgery, but may not play sports beyond the first few years of high school, then perhaps the "hammer" of surgery goes beyond what is necessary.
Obviously, families need to consider these issues on their own based on the situation. However, Hyman poses some interesting points to consider if one of your child athletes is facing this type of a decision.
2 comments:
Sorry about the earlier, poorly constructed post...
I've had several friends who've had this surgery in the past few years (including one just this week). None of their physicians made it sound like surgery was an option, but maybe that's because they are surgeons. Never considered how common it might be among much younger athletes. Yikes.
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