Cheerleading Injury Epidemic Reveals Child Athlete Abuse Syndrome Prompting Safety Summit

April 27, 2011 - PRLog -- North Hollywood, CA — Child Athlete Abuse Syndrome, concussions, heat illness, cheerleading injuries, and a significant lack of emergency preparation in youth sport will be addressed as doctors, experts, advocates, and injury survivors gather at the Athlete Abuse Prevention Summit April 29 in Boston.

Dr. Robert Cantu, the most respected authority on concussions in sports medicine, will deliver the keynote message, updating sport professionals on the concussion crisis facing young athletes. As well as Dr. Frederick Mueller, a professor at the University of North Carolina whose groundbreaking report on high school sports injuries in the early 1970s was a catalyst for the formation of the United States Sports Academy, was instrumental in safety changes in football, baseball, pole vaulting and now cheerleading.  

Other speakers include Dr. Herb Appenzeller of Guilford College, a member of the Academy’s national faculty and an author of 29 books on sports risk management; Dr. Micheal Minix, physician and founder of Child and Adult Physical and Psychological Abuse (CAPPAA), Dr Sharon Chirban consultant to the Boston Ballet, sport psychologist and comeback specialist, Kimberly Archie, founder of the National Cheer Safety Foundation, author and child athlete abuse expert. Along with special guest State Rep. Lori Ehlrich of Massachusetts, founder of two public health advocacy non-profit organizations.

“Sport safety education based on the sports sciences is crucial in reducing catastrophic and over-use injuries in cheerleading,” Dr. Micheal Minix said. ”However, the cheerleading industry is so out of touch with sport coaching standards that the United All Star Federation states athletes with ‘casts that are hard and unyielding or have rough edges must be appropriately covered with a padded material. an air cast to compete’ going against injury policies of the National Athletic Trainer’s Association and recommendations of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research.”

A study released by the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina, which recommended strict safety measures to be adopted, showed that the catastrophic injury rate of high school cheerleaders over the past 27 years has been more than twice that of all other female high school sports combined. The lead author of that report was Mueller, who also co-authored a book with Appenzeller and Archie on managing risk in the gymnastic skill sets of cheerleading: acrobatics and tumbling, available in May.

“Child Athlete Abuse Syndrome is an epidemic in the United States and the over site of sport safety does not match society’s standards for protecting children,” explains Kimberly Archie.  “Just as the civil justice system remediated transportation, farm equipment and job safety through litigation, this generation will see the same process with the youth sports industry.”

Archie has consulted on many cases involving injured cheerleaders, and along the way discovered that there were serious issues regarding safety and abuse in all of youth sport. Only one percent of all sports teams have a rehearsed emergency plan.


“Parents have had enough and we are armed with the law, science and solutions. How many more kids have to suffer preventable injuries whether it be serious or catastrophic before we recognize the problem?” adds cheer parent Claudia Lobosco whose daughter suffered multiple concussions under in competitive cheer.

Archie's daughter, Tiffani Bright, was also injured and wears a metal plate in her left forearm from an injury she suffered in 2003 while doing a back handspring on a trampoline during a tumbling class for her high school cheer team. An employee at the gym allowed another cheerleader on the trampoline while Bright was landing, the force causing her to break both bones in her forearm.

Presentation topics for the summit include Youth Sport Safety: A National Crisis, Identifying and Understanding Child Athlete Abuse Syndrome, Cheerleading Reveals the Patterns of Child Athlete Abuse Syndrome, The Legal Duty of Being Prepared for Catastrophic Injury in Sport, Coach’s Training and Background Checks are a Win-Win, The Female Triad, Shifting the Paradigm in Heat Illness Prevention in Sport and Real Life Testimonies from Sport Injury Survivors.

The summit is sponsored by USA Sport Safety, the NCSF, the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, the National Collegiate Acrobatics & Tumbling Association, and Impact, a provider of computerized neurocognitive assessment tools and services that are used by medical professionals. Those wishing to attend can register at usasportsafety.com/boston or at the door, tickets are $50. The summit will begin at 8:30 a.m. and end at 4:00 p.m. in the Kennedy Room at the historic Omni Parker Hotel in Boston, Mass.  

The National Cheer Safety Foundation a volunteer organization founded by parents, operated by former cheerleaders and backed by the Cheer Safety Experts™ is dedicated to injecting science into cheer safety to reduce injury, disability and death from cheer injuries through research and education of parents, cheerleaders, coaches, gym owners and administrators. To report your injuries go to www.cheerinjuryreport.com and to find out more information about safety or grants go to www.nationalcheersafety.com or call 1-800-596-7860.

Press Contact: Christi Poole
contact@nationalcheersafety.com
1-800-596-7860