Many massage therapists provide sports massage to professional and collegiate athletes. Sports teams of the high-school variety could become a viable massage-practice specialty, as musculoskeletal injuries to that population grows.

At this week's 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Thomas M. DeBerardino, M.D., an orthopaedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine for the University of Connecticut Huskies, moderated a course titled "Athletic Injuries in the Adolescent

Athlete," according to a press release form the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
According to DeBerardino, adolescent sport-related injuries are on the rise, so much so that they have become a "silent epidemic."

"More adolescents are participating in year-round sports without seasonal breaks, or they are playing on multiple teams simultaneously," he says. "This increased exposure means there will continue to be growing numbers of significant musculoskeletal injuries, both traumatic and chronic overuse."

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