Text Messaging Featured Article

Sports are played at different levels by virtually everyone around the world. Whether it is professionals or weekend warriors, injuries are a common part of the games we play. While professional athletes have complete care when it comes to treating of their injuries, those playing for fun in communities across the world have limited access to the benefits of sports medicine.

With limited access to sports medicine and/or adequate healthcare, it is hard to monitor these players when they are injured. According to a report by Christina L. Ekegren, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University in Australia, short message service (SMS) could prove to be a viable alternative for monitoring these players.

The study was designed to determine if community Australian football players would be able to report their injuries using SMS.

The process of selecting the clubs was made randomly from a pool of 22 men's community Australian football clubs. A total of four clubs were chosen and players that chose to participate in the study were asked to report any injury after every game with SMS.  

During the season 139 football players reported a total of 167 injuries through SMS, with a response rate of 90 to 98 percent.

Using this technology to allow not only athletes but anyone that is injured to report their condition is a valuable tool. Depending on the injury getting medical care as soon as possible is extremely important for a positive prognosis. This is especially true if it is a head injury.

As the study in Australia concluded, injury reporting through SMS resulted in high response rates and response time. The participants of the study who replied on the same day revealed 47 percent of them responded within five minutes of their injury.

While the study proves this technology can be applied as a reporting mechanism, the right infrastructure has to be put in place by communities in order to respond properly.

However this injury reporting system can be applied in school athletics around the country to quickly come to the aid of students if they are injured and provide appropriate care. With the limited resources public schools have at their disposal, using SMS can be an affordable solution to support other systems that are in place.