Upper Extremity Screening and Protocols for Overhead Athletes

Course Description: Ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstructions have recently reached “epidemic” proportions at the professional level. Due to a significant rise in recent elbow injuries among adolescent and professional athletes, risk factors have been identified and recommended guidelines developed for parents and coaches to follow during participation. This course is intended for all healthcare professionals who have athletes within their patient population, so that these individuals take a proactive approach and begin to promote prevention and wellness in these athletes while developing sports medicine techniques to respond to these injuries.   In this course, lecture will be implemented to achieve the stated objectives. The instructor will provide an overarching review of the literature as it pertains to upper extremity injury epidemic in overhead athletes. Once the need for appropriate screenings prior to participation has been elucidated, the participants will review key barriers to implementation along with solutions to minimize these barriers. The participants will review the benefits to performing screens on overhead athletes and develop efficient and reproducible protocols to implement within daily clinical practice.