Kenneth C Lam

• Sc.D., ATC
• Professor (Associate) at A.T. Still University

Context Unlearning is a critical component of evidence-based practice, yet research related to its role in athletic training practice is limited. Objective To explore athletic trainers’ (ATs’) perceptions of and experiences with unlearning. Design Cross-sectional. Setting Online survey with open-ended questions. Patients or Other Participants S...

Objective : To describe clinical presentation and initial management of patients with deltoid ligament ankle sprains. Design : Retrospective. Setting : Practice-based research network. Participants : Athletic trainers ( n = 133) from 52 clinics in 19 states. Independent Variable : Deltoid sprains (October 2009–April 2020). Main Outcome Measurements...

Context There is limited evidence regarding the assessment of single-item patient-reported outcomes when patients are medically cleared to return-to-sport following a lateral ankle sprain (LAS) injury. Objective To evaluate self-report of improvement in health status, pain, function, and disability at return-to-sport following a LAS. Design Descr...

Injury prevention and rehabilitation research often address variables that would be considered clinician-oriented outcomes, such as strength, range of motion, laxity, and return-to-sport. While clinician-oriented variables are helpful in describing the physiological recovery from injury, they neglect the patient perspective and aspects of patient-c...

Context Habits play a large role in health care professionals' behaviors. Although habitual practice patterns limit cognitive overload, routinized approaches can compromise the provision of quality and contemporary patient care. To address the issue of habit, unlearning has been suggested across health care fields but remains a relatively new conce...

Context: Ankle sprains are common during sport participation and associated with long-term deficits in self-report of function. However, little is known of short-term changes in self-report of function following injury. The authors aimed to assess statistical and clinically meaningful changes in self-report of function, as measured by the Foot and...

Recently, there has been an emphasis on collecting large datasets in the field of sports medicine. While there have been great advances in areas of sport performance and sport epidemiology, there have been fewer efforts dedicated to understanding the effectiveness and impact of athletic healthcare, including injury prevention programs and rehabilit...

The Disablement in the Physically Active scale (DPA) is a patient-reported outcome measure that is used to evaluate health-related quality of life in athletic and highly functional patient populations. However, its appropriateness for pediatric athletes is unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the readability of the DPA in pediatric ath...

Background Concussions present significant public health concerns and associated medical costs, especially for those with persisting concussion symptoms. Purpose To compare direct costs of care for adolescent patients managed within the secondary school setting with and without persisting concussion symptoms. Methods Our study was a retrospective...

Context: The effective use of electronic records (ie, electronic health/medical records) is essential to professional initiatives and the overall advancement of the athletic training profession. However, evidence suggests comprehensive patient care documentation and wide-spread use of electronic records is still limited in athletic training. The la...

Despite a call to incorporate PROMs into all aspects of health care, little is known about which instruments are best-suited for a pediatric patient population with sport-related injury. The objective of this article was to perform a systematic review of the currently available evidence to determine which patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) a...

As the athletic training profession continues to embrace evidence-based practice, athletic trainers should not only critically appraise the best available evidence, but also effectively translate it into clinical practice to optimize patient outcomes. While previous research has investigated the effectiveness of educational interventions on increas...

Context: Knee injuries are common during sport participation. However, little is known about the overall management and estimated direct cost of care associated with these injuries when under the care of athletic trainers. Objective: To describe treatment characteristics and direct costs of care for athletic training services provided for patients...

Context Cross-country is a popular sport activity, particularly in adolescent populations. Although epidemiologic investigations have provided insight into patient and injury characteristics associated with running injuries, little is known about how these injuries are managed at the point of care. Objective To describe injury and treatment charac...

Background Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) cadets must meet the same physical standards as active duty military servicemembers and undergo organized physical training (PT). ROTC participation, like all physical activity, can result in training-related musculoskeletal injury (MSKI), and of course, cadets could sustain MSKI outside of ROTC. H...

Background Despite the importance of assessing patient outcomes during patient care, current evidence suggests relatively limited use of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) by athletic trainers (ATs). Major barriers to PROM use include lack of knowledge, navigating the intricate process of assessing a wide variety of PROMs, and selecting the...

Context Health care leaders have recommended the use of health information technology to improve the quality of patient care. In athletic training, using informatics, such as electronic medical records (EMRs), would support practice-based decisions about patient care. However, athletic trainers (ATs) may lack the knowledge to effectively participat...

Context Recently, calls to conduct comparative effectiveness research (CER) in athletic training to better support patient care decisions have been circulated. Traditional research methods (eg, randomized controlled trials [RCTs], observational studies) may be ill-suited for CER. Thus, innovative research methods are needed to support CER efforts....

Context: Current evidence suggests that a low percentage of athletic trainers (ATs) routinely use patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). An understanding of the perceptions of ATs who use (AT-USE) and who do not use (AT-NON) PROMs as well as any differences due to demographic characteristics (eg, use for patient care or research, job setting,...

Background While the assessment of symptoms, cognition, balance, and oculomotor function is common among sports medicine clinicians, there has been increased attention on assessing the patient’s perception of their health status following concussion. Recent recommendations suggest the use of patient-report outcome instruments (PROs) as part of the...

Background The assessment of patient outcomes in pediatric (ie, youth and adolescent) athletes is critical for comprehensive and whole person healthcare. The Disablement of the Physically Active scale (DPA) is a relatively new generic patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) that was designed specifically for athletic and highly functional patient p...

Context: The National Institutes of Health created a medical research road map that included the development of the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS). A key feature of PROMIS was the development of patient-reported outcome measures (PROs) addressing various aspects of health. Understanding disablement dimensions and...

Context: There has been an increased interest in understanding how ankle injuries impact patient outcomes; however, it is unknown how the severity of a previous ankle injury influences health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Objective: To determine the impact of a previous ankle injury on current HRQOL in college athletes. Design: Cross-sectio...

Context: High-quality patient care documentation is an essential component of any health care professional's daily practice. Whereas athletic trainers (ATs) recognize the importance of patient care documentation, several barriers may prevent them from producing high-quality patient care documentation. Objective: To explore beneficial strategies...

Objective: Our purpose was to determine the association between concussion recovery and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Setting: Secondary school athletic training facilities. Participants: Patients (N = 122) with a concussion. Study design: Prospective, longitudinal cohort. Main measures: The Pediatric Quality-of-Life Inventory (P...

Context: Current evidence suggests that, despite returning to full participation, physically active adults with a previous knee injury experience lower health-related quality of life (HRQOL) than those with no knee injury history. It is unknown if this relationship is present in adolescent athletes. Objective: To determine the impact of knee inj...

Objective: To describe the patient, injury, assessment and treatment characteristics, as well as return-to-play timelines and clinical findings at discharge for adolescent patients after sport-related concussion. Design: Retrospective analysis of electronic medical records. Setting: Athletic training facilities of secondary school members of t...

Background: Effective use of patient-rated outcome measures to facilitate optimal patient care requires an understanding of the reference values of these measures within the population of interest. Little is known about reference values for commonly used patient-rated outcome measures in adolescent athletes. Purpose: To determine reference value...

Objective: To evaluate associations between the Functional Movement Screen (FMS), Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT), and Balance Error Scoring System (BESS) scores. Design: Correlational. Setting: College athletic training facilities. Participants: Fifty-two intercollegiate athletes (men = 36 and women = 16) representing 8 sports and cleare...

Context: For the practice characteristics of the services athletic trainers (ATs) provide to be identified, all ATs must complete high-quality patient care documentation. However, little is known about ATs' perceptions of patient care documentation or the potential barriers they may encounter while trying to ensure high-quality documentation. Obj...

Context: Documenting patient care is an important responsibility of athletic trainers (ATs). However, little is known about ATs' reasons for documenting patient care and mechanics of completing documentation tasks. Objective: To understand ATs' perceptions about reasons for and the mechanics of patient care documentation. Design: Qualitative s...

Postural control is an integral part of sports participation and is often measured when assessing concussion and rehabilitating musculoskeletal injuries. The purpose of this study was to determine whether developmental differences in postural control, as measured by the Stability Evaluation Test protocol, exist between multiple male age groups (9-2...

Context: Postural control plays an essential role in concussion evaluation. The Stability Evaluation Test (SET) aims to objectively analyze postural control by measuring sway velocity on the NeuroCom's VSR portable force platform (Natus, San Carlos, CA). Objective: To assess the test-retest reliability and practice effects of the SET protocol....

Context: Athletic training services such as taping, wrapping, and stretching are common during routine care but rarely captured in traditional patient documentation. These clinical data are vital when determining appropriate medical coverage and demonstrating the value and worth of athletic trainers (ATs). Objective: To analyze clinical data fro...

Data sources: This review focused on the PubMed/MEDLINE and EMBASE databases. The following query searches were used: ACL or anterior cruciate ligament and young or child or children or pediatric or immature. Dates searched were not specified. A separate search was also conducted of abstracts published between 2009 and 2011 from the American Acade...

Clinical Question In youth and adolescent athletes, are jumping/plyometric exercises more effective than balance exercises in preventing sport-related injuries? Objective The aim of this article is to examine the meta-analysis by Rössler et al. ¹ as it relates to the clinical question. Conclusion Evidence in this meta-analysis suggests that injur...

Context: Patient-rated outcome measures (PROMs) capture changes that are important and meaningful to patients, such as health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Although group differences in HRQOL have been reported, little is known about the effect of injury history on HRQOL in collegiate athletes. Objective: To determine whether knee-specific fu...

The inclusion of clinical practice factors, beyond epidemiologic data, may help guide medical coverage and care decisions. Trends in injury and treatment characteristics of sport-specific injuries sustained by secondary school athletes will differ based on sport. Retrospective analysis of electronic patient records. Level 4. Participants consisted...

The process of selecting PRO instruments is similar to those steps necessary to selecting clinical tools to measure range of motion, strength, swelling, or diagnostic tests based on their accuracy. Questions about the instrument are generally classified into two groups, with one group related to the essential elements of the instrument and with the...

To determine whether jump-landing patterns, as assessed by the Landing Error Scoring System (LESS), differ based on sex and knee injury history. Cross-sectional. College. Two hundred fifteen intercollegiate athletes were grouped by sex (male = 116 and female = 99) and self-reported knee injury history (no = 148, mild = 31, and severe = 36). Partici...

Context: Accurate assessment of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is important for quality patient care. Evaluation of HRQoL typically occurs with patient self-report, but some instruments, such as the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL), allow for proxy reporting. Limited information exists comparing patient and proxy reports of HRQ...

Context Increased rates of sport participation and sport-related injury have led to greater emphasis on and attention to medical care of student-athletes in the secondary school setting. Access to athletic training services is seen as a critical factor for delivering adequate injury prevention and medical care to student-athletes. However, few data...

Objective To determine the impact of concussion on general, fatigue-specific, and headache-specific Health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Design Repeated measures. Setting High school athletic facilities. Patients Two hundred and fifty-nine adolescent athletes who sustained a concussion diagnosed by their athletic trainer (218 males, 41 females,...

Context: Normative scores for patient-rated outcome (PRO) instruments are important for providing patient-centered, whole-person care and making informed clinical decisions. Although normative values for the Pediatric Quality of Life Generic Core Scale (PedsQL) have been established in the general, healthy adolescent population, whether adolescent...

Analysis of health care service models requires the collection and evaluation of basic practice characterization data. Practice-based research networks (PBRNs) provide a framework for gathering data useful in characterizing clinical practice. To describe preliminary secondary school setting practice data from the Athletic Training Practice-Based Re...

To improve and standardize the sideline evaluation of sports-related concussion, the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool 2 (SCAT2) was developed. This tool assesses concussion-related signs and symptoms, cognition, balance, and coordination. This newly published assessment tool has not established representative baseline data on adolescent athletes. R...

Paget-Von Schrötter syndrome is a serious vascular condition rarely found in athletes, particularly in the nondominant arm. It is critical for team physicians and athletic trainers to recognize the signs and symptoms of Paget-Von Schrötter syndrome to initiate early intervention, implement proper treatment, and prevent potentially life-threatening...

Evidence-based practice is an established guiding principle in most medical and health care disciplines. Central to establishing evidence-based practice is the assessment of clinical outcomes. Clinical outcomes represent a form of evidence on which to base medical decisions, as well as providing the mechanism for assessing the effectiveness of evid...

Electrical stimulation is often used to control edema formation after acute injury. However, it is unknown whether its theoretical benefits translate to benefits in clinical practice. To systematically review the basic-science literature regarding the effects of high-voltage pulsed stimulation (HVPS) for edema control. CINAHL (1982 to February 2010...