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Acute or Chronic – General principles
Regardless of the specific structure affected, sports injuries can generally be classified in one of two ways: acute or chronic.
Acute Injuries
Acute injuries, such as a sprained ankle, strained back, or fractured hand, occur suddenly during activity. Signs of an acute injury include the following:
- Sudden, severe pain
- Swelling
- Inability to place weight on a lower limb
- Extreme tenderness in an upper limb
- Inability to move a joint through its full range of motion
- Extreme limb weakness
- Visible dislocation or break of a bone.
Chronic Injuries
Chronic injuries usually result from overusing or abusing an area of the body over a long period of time. This typically occurs in sport as a result of training, technique and biomechanical faults or with everyday activities and postural faults where sustained or repetitive strain leads to established changes in muscle balance and joint function / sensitivity.
The following might be signs of a chronic injury:
- Pain when performing an activity
- A dull ache when at rest
- Swelling