Sports Medicine

In growing children and teens, injuries and medical problems affecting the bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints often are a lot different from those affecting grown-ups.

Unlike adult athletes whose musculoskeletal systems are mature, athletes in the early stages of training are more susceptible to injuries caused by the overuse of growing bones and cartilage. And these injuries can lead to disabilities that extend into adulthood.

At Nemours, our Sports Medicine teams understand how these types of injuries can impact your child—and how each's child individual growth should be taken into consideration with their personalized rehabilitation program. So we do whatever it takes to diagnose and rehabilitate kids' injuries and get them back in the game—safely.

Our Latest Chapter: The Center for Sports Medicine

At Nemours, we offer Sports Medicine care for kids throughout the Delaware Valley, as well as in Jacksonville, FL. As part of our commitment to offering world-class orthopedic care, we're proud to introduce our all-new, 7,200-square-foot Center for Sports Medicine at the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, DE.

The region's largest pediatric sports medicine facility, the Center provides comprehensive, personalized care for kids and teens with sports injuries, as well as young athletes who just want to get better at their game.

We offer a variety of injury prevention, rehabilitation, and training programs developed and run by physicians, athletic trainers, and occupational and physical therapists who specialize in sports medicine. Our "multidisciplinary approach" also incorporates the expertise of specialists from orthopedic surgery, neurology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, cardiology, and nutrition.

Our goals: To help prevent sports injuries from happening in the first place, rehabilitate kids when they do, and give young athletes the tools and know-how they need to play the sports they love—safely.

Conditions We Treat

At all of Nemours' locations offering Sports Medicine, we treat injuries involving the:

• knee: patellar instability, anterior knee pain, anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus tears, cartilage damage
• ankle: ligament tears, instability, cartilage damage
• shoulder: dislocations, impingement, and tendonitis
• elbow: Little Leaguer’s elbow, tennis elbow, loose bodies
• spine: spondolysthesis (when one spine bone slips in relation to the one below it),  muscle strains/sprains
• hip: dance, ice hockey, and ice skating injuries
• head: concussions

Sports Injury Assessment

At all of Nemours' locations offering Sports Medicine, we offer:

• evaluating the adolescent's skeletal maturity
• testing for overuse syndromes
• diagnosis of growth center overload injuries such as epiphysitis or apophysitis
• understanding the athlete's performance goals, current and future
• customized care plans, including evaluation of sports readiness, strength training, and general conditioning for recreational or competitive sports

Surgical Intervention

At duPont Hospital for Children and our partner, Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville, we offer surgical intervention for:

• ACL reconstruction
• shoulder stabilization
• arthroscopy
• cartilage restoration

Preventive Services

• customized conditioning (“prehabilitation”) regimens that concentrate on core strengths to prevent overuse injuries and develop good body mechanics
• pre-season screenings
• intervention counseling: when and how to rest, how to play

State-of-the-Art Athletic Training Staff and Equipment

• Comprehensive programs tailored to your athlete’s age, sport, and developmental level, with a special emphasis on flexibility, strength, balance, agility, core stability, coordination, and body control.
• certified athletic trainers and certified strength and conditioning specialists
• a physical therapy and rehabilitation facility that features:
  • standard and wheelchair-accessible fitness equipment
  • weight training and rehabilitation equipment
  • indoor aquatic therapy
  • Balance Master muscular testing for sports enhancement
  • basketball and racquetball courts

Access to a Full Range of Pediatric Specialists

• radiologists for specialized onsite X-rays, MRIs, ultrasounds and blood flow studies
• cardiologists for pre-participation screening
• pulmonologists to treat for exercise-induced asthma
• neuropsychologists for post-concussion follow-up
• child psychologists

We welcome a young athlete’s referral by a primary care doctor or pediatrician if there is a diagnostic question about the injury, or if the child continues to experience pain or limitation as a result of the injury. Parents may also self-refer their child to our specialized Sports Medicine Program if they are concerned that the injury may have a lasting impact on their child’s performance goals.