AGING, PHYSICAL-ACTIVITY AND SPORTS INJURIES - AN OVERVIEW OF COMMON SPORTS INJURIES IN THE ELDERLY

Illness and aging both cause many structural and functional alteration s in the human body, rendering elderly people liable to overloading of the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems. It should, however, b e kept in mind that immobilisation and inactivity have even more delet erious effects on structures and functions in the elderly than in youn ger adults. Most physically active elderly people are selected individ uals with respect to their superior health and physical capacity compa red with inactive persons of the same age, thus making it possible to further improve their physical capacity. They will, however, be affect ed by some of the drawbacks of physical overloading, mostly due to the diminished ability of aging body systems to adapt to high levels of l oading. The safety margin of an exercise dose tends to decline with ag ing. Exertional injuries are common among the elderly, and are connect ed mostly with degenerative aging processes. Acute injuries are common in those elderly people participating in sport activities which deman d high coordination, reaction time, and balance capabilities, such as ball games, down-hill skiing, and gymnastics. Muscle has been reported to be the most commonly acutely injured tissue among active elderly a thletes. The lower extremities are the most susceptible to injury. A l arge proportion of injuries (acute and exertional) are mild and can be treated by brief cessation of training and competition activities. So me of the injuries are, however, long term and cause disability not on ly during training and competition, but also in the normal activities of daily living. It is important that these injuries ate treated as so on as possible and in the most effective way, similarly to injuries su ffered by younger people. In treating elderly people, it is most impor tant to avoid the detrimental effects of immobilisation; this requires active treatment and rehabilitation with compensatory exercise therap y. The best 'treatment' for sports-related injuries is prevention. Goo d agility, technical skills, and cardiovascular and musculoskeletal fi tness are important in injury prevention among the elderly. Appropriat e training programmes, the use of safe and familiar equipment, careful warming up and cooling down, multiphasic training [including the trai ning of neurophysiological functions (balance, coordination and reacti on time)] and muscle strength are essential aspects of injury preventi on.