The physician's clinical judgment is essential in the application of these recommendations to a specific patient. Even in noncontact sports (eg, power lifting), in which contact is rare and unexpected, serious injuries can occur. However, some limited-contact sports (eg, skateboarding) can be as dangerous as collision or contact sports. In limited-contact sports (eg, softball and squash), contact with other athletes or with inanimate objects is infrequent or inadvertent. In contact sports (eg, basketball and soccer), athletes routinely make contact with each other or with inanimate objects but usually with less force than in collision sports. In collision sports (eg, boxing, ice hockey, football, lacrosse, and rodeo), athletes purposely hit or collide with each other or with inanimate objects (including the ground) with great force. This categorization may subdivide contact sports into collision and contact sports although there may be no clear dividing line between the 2, collision implies greater injury risk. One way of determining this is by estimating the relative risk of an acute injury to the athlete by categorizing sports as contact, limited-contact, or noncontact sports (Table 1). Health care professionals must determine whether a child with a health condition should participate in a particular sport.

Physical pathological disease list