Back to school ads are in full swing and the countdown to end of summer vacation is drawing close. The start of the new school year is exciting, but it also prompts a spike in anxiety especially for kids who are entering a transition year. Expectations and anticipations can also be overwhelming.

Children's Mercy Sports Medicine Center's Becky Wiseman, a specialist when it comes to the mental wellness around sport, returned to the podcast to help adolescents, as well as their their parents manage the anxieties with the start of a new school year. 

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Summer vacation still has a few weeks left, but on the other side of July 4 area athletes and their parents are starting to turn their attention to getting ready for the fall sport season. A big piece to being ready is having a sports physical, since it is required to compete at the high school level. Dr. Jay Roberson, a sports medicine physician at the Children's Mercy Sports Medicine Center, shares with us why sports physicals are important and which physician is the best to conduct those physicals. 

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The transition to spring brings all kinds of emotions for adolescent athletes. Tryouts for spring sports bring anticipation and anxiety, while thoughts and planning for prom and/or graduation start creeping into play. The pressures of preparing for college through standardized tests like the ACT and SAT, college visits, etc. The spring is a time of hope and new beginning and everyone has that mental plan of how they want it to all go.  It's a lot.

Luckily, Children's Mercy Sports Medicine Center's Becky Wiseman, a specialist when it comes to the mental wellness around sport, joins us on the podcast to help adolescent athletes and their parents manage the big feelings and big reactions that have already happened this spring, or are about to.

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Continuing with common knee injuries, in this episode we talk about patella dislocations with Kevin Latz, MD, the Chief of the Children's Mercy Sports Medicine Center. The discussion baselines what patella dislocations are, as well as non-operative and operative treatments, as well as genetic tendencies of these injuries.  This episode compliments our previous episode which covered a recent surge in ACL injuries and the commonalities between the two injuries when it comes to the swelling of the knee. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a lot of things, and one of those might be an uptick in ACL injuries among adolescent athletes. We talked with pediatric orthopedic surgeon Dr. Donna Pacicca from the Children's Mercy Sports Medicine Center about this trend, as well as treatments and medical developments in ACL injuries. The conversation provided great insights into ACL injuries in male and female athletes, as well as a terrific description on what the ACL is and does in the knee.   

Even though athletes can appear super-human at times, at the end of the day we are all human and mistakes and falling on the short side of the scoreboard are just facts of life when it comes to the world of sport.  What are some things that can help our adolescent athletes with handling mistakes and accepting defeat?  Children's Mercy Sports Medicine Center's Becky Wiseman, a specialist when it comes to the mental aspect of sport, teaches us how to see this challenges as opportunities to improve, mature and grow, while emerging as a stronger person. 

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Sport participation is at the core of the Children’s Mercy Sports Medicine Center’s mission statement, as it promotes the physical and emotional well-being of student-athletes, while encouraging a lifelong habit of exercise. Although the benefits of athletic activity are significant, too much activity can lead to injury – especially when specific actions are repeated over a long period of time.

Our guest for this episode is Greg Canty, MD, a sports medicine physician at Children’s Mercy. Dr. Canty has extensive medical training including seven years of medical school and pediatrics residency at the University of Louisville, three years of emergency medicine fellowship at Children’s Mercy, and a year of sports medicine fellowship at the University of Colorado.

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Since the onset of COVID-19, Children's Mercy Kansas City has had a task force addressing the questions and concerns around athletes returning to sport following COVID infection. On this episode, we are joined by three of those task force members - sports medicine physicians Natalie Stork, MD; and Brian Harvey, DO, as well as Nicole Fillingame, the sports medicine outreach and athletic training manager. 

The conversation, which was recorded on Oct. 14, 2021, includes the latest updates around returning to play following COVID-19 infection as well as the teams' work with the living white paper: Recommendations for a Safe Return to Sport and Physical Activity After COVID-19.

Despite the commonly known importance of water in our bodies, many athletes do not seriously consider the effects of hydration during and after athletic performance. Sometimes referred to as the hidden nutrient, water is involved in the majority of chemical reactions that occur in an athlete's body around athletic performance.   

Our guest for this episode is a clinical nutrition specialist IV at Children’s Mercy, Lora Edwards, MEd, RD, LD, CSSD holds a board certification in sports dietetics. Lora talks us through the importance of water for athletes and how to be hydrated before, during and after physical activity to achieve their maximal physical performance.

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Athletes are praised for their time management skills. Their lifestyle requires it. Balancing practice, training, conditioning, academics, social lives, etc., athletes have to be organized and structured. Yet, COVID changed all that and for some of our athletes their axis was altered.  Instead of busy schedules, athletes found themselves with a lot of free time.  Now, with fall sports revving up, our athletes are being asked to return to that lifestyle.  Children's Mercy Sports Medicine Center's sports mental therapist Becky Wiseman, LCSW, LSCSW offers advice and tips to help athletes and their parents make this pivot in a healthy way.    

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