Injury Prevention and Safety
Domain 7: Injury Prevention and Safety
The exam tests risk management, injury mechanisms, prevention strategies, and emergency response. Questions often present a scenario and ask for the safest first action or the most effective prevention approach.
Core rules
- Acute injuries include strains, sprains, contusions, fractures, and concussions; overuse injuries reflect cumulative load without adequate recovery.
- Prevention is multifactorial: progressive load management, strength and balance training, technique, appropriate footwear/equipment, warm-up, and environmental checks.
- For acute soft-tissue injury, protect and limit bleeding with compression and elevation; avoid harmful anti-inflammatory use early and introduce movement as tolerated. Traditional RICE has evolved toward protection and relative rest.
- Concussion: remove from play immediately, do not permit same-day return, and follow a graduated return-to-learn/return-to-sport protocol.
- Emergency action plan: access, CPR/AED, activation of EMS, and rehearsal. Heat illness, lightning, and cervical-spine precautions require predetermined protocols.
- Screening can identify risk but cannot predict all injuries.
Worked example
A soccer player rolls an ankle and has swelling but can bear weight. The safest immediate response is removal from play, protection, compression, elevation, and assessment. Returning to the same half because “it is only a sprain” ignores the risk of impaired proprioception and further injury. Rehabilitation should restore range, strength, balance, and sport-specific loading before return.
Traps
Do not allow an athlete with suspected concussion to “shake it off.” Static stretching immediately before power activities is not a proven injury-prevention warm-up. Ice alone is not rehab. “No pain, no gain” is dangerous with bone or nerve symptoms. Also, an emergency plan that is written but never practiced is incomplete.