NATA

With participation in high school and college sports and injuries, including to the teeth, on the rise, the National Athletic Trainers' Association has issued new guidelines on preventing and managing sport-related dental and oral injuries through the use of mouthguards.

Athletic trainers need to take a more public health approach to injury prevention by expanding their professional focus from the teams and athletes they work with at their institutions to all physically active individuals, urged speakers at the National Athletic Trainers' Association's 2016 Clinical Symposia and AT Expo.

The National Athletic Trainers' Association has released a new position statement on the management of sport concussion. The statement is an update to the NATA's original 2004 concussion guidelines and addresses education, prevention, documentation and legal aspects, evaluation and return-to-play considerations. In particular, the authors amended the return-to-play guidelines and now recommend no return on the day the athlete is concussed.

The National Athletic Trainers' Association inter-association task force recommendations on best practices for sports medicine management for secondary schools and colleges can be used by parents to evaluate whether their child's school is providing adequate sports medicine services for its athletes.

The National Athletic Trainers' Association has launched the first-ever Safe Sports School award program to recognize secondary schools around the country that provide safe environments for student athletes and reinforce the importance of providing the best level of care, injury prevention and treatment.

With preseason practices now underway and the start of fall sports around the corner, MomsTEAM, along with the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA), recommends that athletic health care providers conduct a "Time Out" before athletic events to ensure that an emergency action plan (EAP) is reviewed and in place.

Pre-season heat acclimatization guidelines handout.

Six years after a joint task force of medical groups issued pre-season heat acclimatization guidelines, only 13 state high school athletic associations have moved to adopt them.

The National Athletic Trainers' Association is now an official supporter of Advocates for Injured Athletes and its Athletes Saving Athletes^TM program, which provides high school students with training and skills to recognize signs and symptoms of life-threatening injuries, with the aim of reducing the risk and incidence of injury and death among student-athletes.