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August 2024 - Volume 23 - Issue 8

• Editor-in-Chief: Shawn F. Kane, MD, FACSM
• ISSN: 1537-8918
• Frequency: 12 issues / year
• Ranking: 64/127 in Sports Science Total Cites = 2,404 Eigenfactor Score = 0.00209 Cited Half- Life = 8.3 Google Scholar h5- index = 34
• Impact Factor: 1.7

Note from Editor-in-Chief Shawn F. Kane

August… it's August already? How did that happen?

Welcome everyone to the next edition of Current Sports Medicine Reports . By the time this edition hits the internet, fall sports will have begun practicing and games will be quickly approaching. It has been great to watch some of the big European football (soccer) clubs playing some friendlies in the states, but I can't wait to watch competitive football matches on both sides of the pond. My Saturday productivity drops off this time of the year. Enough of that … onto this edition.

Yet again, Robert E. Sallis, MD, FACSM, has put together another excellent Exercise is Medicine edition. You won't want to miss the section article “Using Wearable Technologies to Monitor Physical Activity and Exercise in Patients: A Narrative Review," by Jessica Sher, MD; Christopher W. Lewis, MD; and Cindy Lin, MD. Be sure to read the case report, “Exertional Compartment Syndrome in a Volleyball Player with Structural Abnormalities: A Case Report," by Katherine D. Wilson, BS; Michael C. Oca, BS; Leo L.T. Meller, BS; Matthew R. Allen, BS; and Michael B Strauss, MD.

This issue also includes an important invited commentary on “Transgender Athlete Participation in Sport: Misplaced Fear & the Harms of Exclusion," written by Robert Phillips, PT, DPT, PhD; Lee Ryder, PT, DPT; and Ebony Jackson Clark, PT, DPT.

Check out the Scanning Sports Medicine column which covers the latest clinical research published by the American College of Sports Medicine.

Thanks to everyone who has submitted proposals for next year's Annual Meeting. We have begun the fun and arduous task of picking the best of the best for ACSM's Annual Meeting. Can't wait -- it will be another great meeting!

​Sincerely, Shawn

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Transgender athlete participation in sport: misplaced fear and the harms of exclusion.

Current Sports Medicine Reports. 23(8):277-279, August 2024.

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Using Wearable Technologies to Monitor Physical Activity and Exercise in Patients: A Narrative Review

Current Sports Medicine Reports. 23(8):284-289, August 2024.

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Research hotspots and trends on sports medicine of athletes: A scientometric analysis from 2003 to 2023

a Department of Physical Education, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Haidian district, Beijing, China.

Associated Data

This study aims to demonstrate current research priorities and predict future trends of sports medicine of athletes by scientometric analysis. We collected nearly 20 years (2003 to 2023) of publications related to Sports medicine of athletes in the Web of Science database, Citespace was applied to evaluate the knowledge mapping. There are 4820 manuscripts about post-cesarean section in total, and faster growth after 2018. The country, institution, and author posted the most are the USA, Harvard University, and Engebretsen, Lars. Brit J Sport Med publishes the most articles of this type. In addition, the most key cited reference is Hopkins WG (2009). Sports medicine of athletes research, including blood, biomedical imaging informatics, and activity monitor has been a research hotspots in recent years. Through scientometric analysis of the past 20 years, we know the blood, biomedical imaging informatics, and activity monitor is the focus of future research. The USA, Australia, and England have become the main research forces in this field with high publication rates and centrality. This is important for accurately and quickly locating trends in this field.

1. Introduction

After a sports injury, how to get back to the compete again quickly, the answer to this question is rarely straightforward and is influenced by many factors. However, in most cases the goals of the injured athlete and the treating clinician (plus other stakeholders in the decision-making team, such as coaches, parents and managers) are the same – to facilitate a timely and safe return to sport. Return to sport can be viewed as a continuum paralleled with recovery and rehabilitation – not simply a decision taken in isolation at the end of the recovery and rehabilitation process. [ 1 ] As injury is an inevitable part of sports participation, more and more attention has been paid to the research of sports medicine. Due to the rapid growth of sports medicine of athletes research, it is a challenge to entirely understand its research status and hotspots.

Scientometrics is a quantitative analysis of a specific discipline. Including the different database: Pubmed, [ 2 ] Web of Science (WOS), [ 3 ] Scopus, [ 4 ] Derwent, [ 5 ] etc. Among them, WOS is analyzed by different software (Histcite, [ 6 ] Citespace, [ 5 ] VOSviewer, [ 7 ] etc) that can be used for scientometric analysis. Readers can completely understand the hotspots, trends, and frontiers in this field through Citspace software, which helps us to illustrate the development background of certain areas of research. [ 8 ] Citespace is a mature visualization software. [ 9 ] It explores the key point in the evolution of subject fields. Citespace includes coauthor, co-citation, and co-occurrence analysis. [ 10 ] There are 3 concepts: burst detection, betweenness centrality, and heterogeneous network. [ 11 ]

There is currently no bibliometric method to study the sports medicine of athletes. Therefore, the researchers used Citespace software to analyze the global role and trend of sports medicine of athletes in the WOS database from January 1, 2003, to March 6, 2023, and established a field knowledge map in this study.

2.1. Source of literature

We input the WOS database with subject words: TS= (((Sports Medicine) OR (exercise therapy medicine) OR (Rehabilitation medicine) OR (Evidence-based rehabilitation) OR (Therapeutic Exercise) OR (Exercise Rehabilitation) OR (rehabilitation)) AND ((athletes) OR (Athletics))). The search scope of the database is from January 1, 2003, to March 6, 2023, and the language type was English. After Citespace eliminated duplication, 4820 pieces of literature were used for quantitative analysis. The WOS database comes from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications database in China. Therefore, in a way, it is better to add this point in the text that all the articles containing “search terms” have been checked (and therefore, some retrieved articles may not necessarily be 100% relevant).

2.2. Analysis software

Citespace analysis software version is Version 5.6.R2. [ 10 ]

2.3. Download and import of data

Export the results of the retrieved subject terms, keep the file format as “plain text.”

2.4. Parameter setting

Time slicing (from 2001 to 2023; node type (check 1 at a time); selection criteria (50); pruning(pathfinder); visualization (show merged network, cluster view-static).

2.5. Statistical methods

All literature on have been scientifically analyzed; Some data obtained include core countries, institutions, authors, keywords, and references. [ 11 – 13 ] The detailed analysis flow is shown in Figure ​ Figure1 1

Analysis flow chart of sports medicine of athletes.

3.1. Analysis of the publications

During the research period, the total number of articles increased and fluctuated. From Figure ​ Figure2, 2 , the research is divided into 2 stages: the first stage is from 2003 to 2014, and the second stage is from 2015 to 2022. The second stage was a speed development period. The publication published 198 references in 2014, rising to 230 references in 2015. In 2022, this number was growing to 506. These results indicate that sports medicine of athletes was receiving increasing attention in research for the last 6 years.

The number of sports medicine of athletes publications indexed by WOS from 2003 to 2023. WOS = Web of Science.

3.2. Analysis of countries and institutions

Generated a country map (Fig. ​ (Fig.3). 3 ). Research groups in 93 countries published 4820 references. The USA, Australia, England, Italy and Canada are the top 5 countries (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). USA (0.23), Spain (0.2) and the Australia (0.17) are the top 3 countries from centrality (purple round). An analysis of publication and centrality shows that the USA, and Australia were the main research force in Sports medicine of athletes. Germany, Peoples Republic of China, and Brazil have continued to increase their research interest in this field. The research is mainly distributed in developed countries, and cooperation between countries is weak.

Top 5 countries and institutions researching sports medicine of athletes.

Analysis of the country map from 2003 to 2023.

Generated an institution map that had 382 nodes and 802 links (Fig. ​ (Fig.4). 4 ). The 4820 publications have been published in 382 research institutions. Harvard University, University System of Ohio, University of North Carolina, Harvard Medical School, and Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education are the top 5 institutions (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). In terms of centrality, the top 3 institutions were University of California System (0.1), Aspetar Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital (0.1), and University of Padua (0.1). In addition, the links between institutions are relatively thin, indicating that cooperation is weak.

Analysis of the institutional map from 2003 to 2023.

3.3. Analysis of journals and co-cited journals

The top 10 academic journals related to sports medicine of athletes (see Table S1, Supplemental Digital Content, http://links.lww.com/MD/J826 which demonstrates the top 10 academic journals). They are specialized journals in this field. Some articles are highly cited, such as “Progressive statistics for studies in sports medicine and exercise science.” [ 14 ] In this article provide a best practice for the use of statistics in sports medicine and the exercise sciences.

Generated a co-cited journal map that had 156 nodes and 169 links (Fig. ​ (Fig.4). 4 ). Brit J Sport Med, Med Sci Sport Exer, Sports Med, Am J Sport Med , and Clin J Sport Med are the top 5 co-cited journals, Am J Sport Med, Clin J Sport Med, JAMA-J Am Med Assoc, JAMA-J Am Med Assoc, Brit J Sport Med , and Med Sci Sport Exer are the top 5 centralities (Table ​ (Table2, 2 , Figure S1, Supplemental Digital Content, http://links.lww.com/MD/J824 which demonstrates the institutional map). In an analysis of publication, centrality, the core journal is the Brit J Sport Med , which was related to the topic of analgesia in our study. It published pieces of literature reflect the current state of research in this field.

Top five co-cited journals and centrality related to sports medicine of athletes research from 2003 to 2023.

3.4. Analysis of author and co-cited author

2558 research authors published 4820 articles. The top 10 authors with published articles about sports medicine of athletes (see Table S2, Supplemental Digital Content, http://links.lww.com/MD/J829 which demonstrates the top 10 authors) are experts in this field. Generated a coauthor map had 2558 nodes and 5185 links (see Figure S2, Supplemental Digital Content, http://links.lww.com/MD/J825 which demonstrates the coauthor map). Engebretsen, Lars, Pelliccia, Antonio, and Hainline, Brian were the top 3 centralities (see Table S3, Supplemental Digital Content, http://links.lww.com/MD/J831 which demonstrates top 5 co-cited authors; see Figure S2, Supplemental Digital Content, http://links.lww.com/MD/J825 which demonstrates the coauthor map).

As the author with the most published and co-cited articles, Meehan, William P is based at the Children’s Hospital Boston., he discusses therapies investigated for the treatment of functional traumatic brain injury as a whole, not solely those initially labeled as mild. [ 15 ] He suggests if the athlete has quantifiable cognitive deficits, a trial of pharmacologic agents may be considered. His research has contributed greatly to sports medicine of athletes.

3.5. Analysis of co-cited references

Generated the reference co-cited map that had 545 nodes and 2172 links (Fig. ​ (Fig.5). 5 ). An analysis of counts and centrality (Tables ​ (Tables3 3 and ​ and4) 4 ) revealed that the data usually comes in the form of Guidelines and consensus. Among them, “Progressive statistics for studies in sports medicine and exercise science” (impact factor: 6.289) was published in Med Sci Sports Exerc in 2009. This article was reported by William G Hopkins. This article provides a best practice for the use of statistics in sports medicine and the exercise sciences. It should achieve 3 useful outcomes. First, it should stimulate interest and debate about constructive change in the use of statistics in our disciplines. Secondly, it should help legitimize the innovative or controversial approaches that we and others sometimes have difficulty including in publications. Finally, it should serve as a statistical checklist for researchers, reviewers, and editors at the various stages of the research process. Guidelines are the most cited and illustrate the standardization of research and treatment.

Top five co-cited references related to Sports medicine of athletes research in terms of co-citation.

Top five co-cited references in sports medicine of athletes research in terms of centrality.

Analysis of the co-citation reference map from 2003 to 2023.

3.6. Analysis of keywords

Figure ​ Figure6 6 shows the occurrence network of keywords. The analysis divided them into 10 clusters (Fig. ​ (Fig.7A 7 A and B): cluster 1 (catastrophic injury; blood; biomedical imaging informatics; activity monitor; bone fractures, red); cluster 2 (second-impact syndrome; oculomotor; cardiovascular system; overuse injury; occupational injuries, yellow); cluster 3 (dynamic motor imagery; hand; glycerphospholipid; beta (2)-agonists; exercise stress testing, canary yellow); cluster 4 (evidence-based medicine; medicine ball throw; force couple; autologous; international sport). In cluster 1, high rates were “sports medicine (194.34, 1.0E-4); injury prevention (79.26, 1.0E-4); pediatric sports medicine (41.67, 1.0E-4); physical therapy (28.48, 1.0E-4); baseball (27.07, 1.0E-4).” In cluster 2, the high-rate keywords were “concussion (150.58, 1.0E-4); mild traumatic brain injury (102.71, 1.0E-4); adolescent (54.2, 1.0E-4); return to play (36.63, 1.0E-4); sports injury (32.73, 1.0E-4).” In cluster 3, the high rate was “athlete (129.33, 1.0E-4); sport (122.9, 1.0E-4); injury (97.2, 1.0E-4); exercise (96.2, 1.0E-4); doping (55.28, 1.0E-4),” and in cluster 4, the high rate keywords were “rehabilitation (134.9, 1.0E-4); electromyography (72.59, 1.0E-4); athletic performance (42.1, 1.0E-4); resistance training (41.39, 1.0E-4); exercise therapy (37.75, 1.0E-4).” Keywords can reflect the hotspots and research directions in the field of research to a certain extent. From these keywords, we can know that biomedical imaging, blood may become the focus of research in the future.

Shows the occurrence network of keywords.

(A) Analysis of the co-occurrence network of keywords map from 2003 to 2023. (B) Analysis of the co-occurrence network of keywords map from 2003 to 2023.

4. Discussion

From the analysis of Citespace, we found that the annual articles about sports medicine of athletes was increasing from 2003 to 2023. It may be because that sports medicine has not been widely recognized.

Research cluster has been selected as the main research topic in this field. In a cluster, the main keywords were Biomedical imaging informatics and blood was the main modality of sports medicine of athletes. Biomedical informatics is the interdisciplinary field that studies and pursues the effective uses of biomedical data, information, and knowledge for scientific inquiry, problem solving, and decision-making, motivated by efforts to improve human health. [ 16 , 17 ] Blood flow restriction (BFR) training has garnered increased attention in recent years because of the potential for individuals to achieve an increased degree of muscle burden and physiologic change at a lower level of resistance training. [ 18 ] BFR has been used during physical therapy to aid in the recovery of elderly patients after knee arthroscopy or more complex knee surgery, such as anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. [ 20 , 21 ] Hughes et al [ 19 ] concluded that low-load BFR training could provide a more effective approach to low-load resistance training in a broad population undergoing clinical musculoskeletal rehabilitation. [ 22 ] so it has become a recent research hotspots.

By analyzing references and keywords, “concussion,” “injury prevention,” “adolescent” appears more frequently. It means that sports medicine often appears in these 3 aspects. Although concussion is a common sports injury, there are few published data on effective treatments. Many current recommendations are based on anecdotal evidence and consensus. Even when the search is expanded beyond the realm of sports, to include all forms of concussive brain injury, data remain scarce. Concussion is common in athletes. [ 23 , 24 ] Headache is the most common symptom reported after concussion, [ 25 , 26 ] and sport-related concussion specifically. [ 27 ] As every clinician who manages concussions can attest, postconcussive headaches can be difficult to treat. There seems to be an inverse relationship between the severity of head trauma and the occurrence of posttraumatic headaches. [ 28 , 29 ] Although the use of analgesics, such as ibuprofen, may be beneficial in the short-term, rebound headaches are common and can complicate treatment and recovery. [ 30 ] Therefore, their frequent use should be discouraged.

There is limited research on the impact of medications on sports medicine, such as sedatives and hypnotics. Sports performance may suffer, recuperation may be hampered, and injury risk may rise. [ 31 ] Additionally, it impairs athletes’ capacity to keep up strong performance levels and a happy attitude. Anxiety may also be a risk factor for sleep problems in athletes. [ 32 , 33 ] In fact, a recent meta-analysis of elite athletes in the present day revealed that 34% of them displayed signs of anxiety/depression. [ 34 , 35 ] For this reason, occasionally, the loss of this equilibrium could lead individuals to seek solace in sleeping pills. Research has attempted in recent years to draw the athletic community’s attention to the usage and abuse of benzodiazepines (BZDs) in sport. Several years ago, some research attempted to further the discussion surrounding the usage of BZDs in sports. The most recent literature review suggests that BZDs do not have an ergogenic effect on exercise performance and may even be detrimental.

5. Conclusion

Bibliometric analysis of sports medicine of athletes publications from 2003 to 2023 revealed. The biomedical informatics and blood flow restriction is the focus of future research. The USA, Australia, England have become the main research forces in this field with high publication rates and centrality. Many developed countries have the strongest cooperation with well-known institutions, which is conducive to the development of sports medicine of athletes research. These articles are widely cited because they are guideline or highly impact factor.

6. Limitations

This technique may have missed publications published in other databases since we solely used CiteSpace software for visual examination of the WOS database in this investigation. Additionally, the search technique was developed to gather as much information as possible, therefore it cannot be assumed that all included articles are entirely pertinent to the subject of the study.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: Xiongce Lv.

Data curation: Xiongce Lv, Ye Tao.

Formal analysis: Xiongce Lv.

Funding acquisition: Xiongce Lv.

Methodology: Xiongce Lv.

Project administration: Ye Tao.

Resources: Xiongce Lv, Ye Tao.

Software: Xiongce Lv, Ye Tao.

Supervision: Ye Tao.

Writing – original draft: Xiongce Lv, Ye Tao.

Writing – review & editing: Xiongce Lv.

Supplementary Material

Abbreviations:.

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications basic scientific research business cost new teacher talent project (No.2022RC55).

Supplemental Digital Content is available for this article.

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

The ethical approval was not necessary, because there is no data to be approved by the Ethics Committee in this document.

How to cite this article: Tao Y, Lv X. Research hotspots and trends on sports medicine of athletes: A scientometric analysis from 2003 to 2023. Medicine 2023;102:39(e35254).