Heat injury in youth sport: Table 1

Abstract

Heat injury is a potentially lethal condition that is considered to be completely preventable. Fatal heat injury is relatively rare (0.20 per 100 000 player-seasons in US high school football) and there are very limited data on non-fatal incidence. Expert recommendations for prevention include gradual acclimatisation of youth athletes to hot conditions, reductions in activity in hot and humid conditions, wearing light and light-coloured clothing, careful monitoring of athletes for signs of heat injury to facilitate immediate detection, having the resources to immediately and rapidly cool affected athletes, and education of athletes, care givers, and coaches about heat injury. Although a base of observational case data, physiological information, and expert opinion exists, the science surrounding this field is devoid of health communication and health behaviour research, and there is a pressing need for analytical studies to evaluate intervention programmes and/or identify new risk factors. There is also a need for ongoing data collection on heat injury incidence and on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards heat injury among youth athletes, their care givers and their coaches.

Implementing Exertional Heat Illness Prevention Strategies in US High School Football

“…These 17 recommendations were then grouped into six major categories. In addition to the NATA-IATF preseason heat acclimatization guidelines, we identified several related EHI prevention strategies on the basis of existing recommendations (1,7,11,14). These included policies for initiating emergency medical service (EMS) response, staff training policies, and active monitoring of environmental temperature and humidity.…”

The Exceptionality of the Young Athlete

“…These newer fi ndings indicate that children and adults have similar rectal and skin temperatures, cardiovascular responses and exercisetolerance time during exercise in the heat [ 93 -96 ]. Thus, it may be that children are at an increased risk simply because they are more likely to be exposed to vigorous physical exercise during the warm summer months [ 86 ]. It has also been shown that during exercise, children may fail to ingest suffi cient fl uid to prevent dehydration, because they often do not feel the urge to drink enough to replenish the fl uid loss before or following exercise [ 97 ].…”

Heat illness surveillance in schoolboys participating in physical education class in tropical climate: an analytical prospective descriptive study

“…16e19 The risk of heat illness may be explained by exposure and social/behavioural differences. 20 Children frequently do not drink enough to replace fluid loss during exercise. 15 21 22 A study in 10e12-year-old boys revealed that children developed dehydration due to insufficient drinking while exercising in hot climate.…”

“…Children tend to attend outdoor summer sports camps and spend more time outside. 20 For example, in physical education class, participation is mandatory and activities are often conducted in the late morning and afternoon, the hottest period of the day. Thus, the susceptibility to heat illness may be raised if the class takes place outdoors.…”