Wake Forest Baptist Provides Free Back-to-School Guide to Help Keep Student Athletes Healthy

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Aug. 3, 2017 – With the beginning of the school fall sports season right around the corner, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is providing a free booklet full of nutrition, conditioning and recovery tips, designed to help keep student athletes healthy and injury-free.

Recognizing the signs and symptoms of concussion, avoiding heat-related illness and the importance of having certified athletic trainers at practices and games are all topics covered in the guide.

“Many injuries to young athletes can be prevented with proper conditioning,” said Heath Thornton, M.D., sports medicine expert and medical director of the Athletic Training Outreach Program at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. “But when injuries do occur, our goal is to get the athlete back to health and ultimately back to their sport, with the same standard of care we provide to college and professional athletes.”

The guide also offers information about Wake Forest Baptist’s athletic trainer program in which this fall the Medical Center begins its second year providing certified athletic trainers for every high school in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system. Offering a wide range of nutrition, injury prevention and treatment programs for athletes, and lifesaving education and training for coaches, the athletic trainers attend practices and stand ready to help from the sidelines at games.

As part of a mission to find ways to help keep young athletes safer, Wake Forest Baptist is also pioneering leading-edge research to evaluate head impacts in youth and high school sports.

The free guide will be available at various Wake Forest Baptist and community events this fall and is available now for download at wakehealth.edu/Certified-Athletic-Trainer-Program/.

SOURCE: Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center