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There are three classifications of injuries that relate to how and when the injury occurred. These classifications are: acute injuries, overuse injuries, and re-injuries.

Acute injuries occur suddenly and are usually associated with some form of physical trauma. When an injury occurs "out-of-nowhere" and there are no traces of symptoms previous to the time of sudden injury, they are classified as acute. Acute injuries should be taken very seriously and cautiously.

As stated before, acute injuries are usually caused by some sort of physical trauma to the involved area or close to it. If something internally has been disrupted or displaced, even the slight movements in the wrong direction may cause further damage.

For example: Ted is a baseball player and he is running to the home plate in an attempt to score for his team. Ted knows the ball is being thrown in to the plate to tag him out. He decides to slide feet first into the base. Unfortunately, like on many little league diamonds, the base is somehow fixed to the ground and does not move when the bottom of Ted's foot hits it.

Hitting the base causes his foot to stop, but his momentum keeps his body moving, causing him to roll up over his foot. His foot stayed where it was and therefore made his ankle twist inward (inversion). This is a typical mechanism for an ankle sprain. This is considered to be an acute injury because there was a sudden trauma to his ankle.

The following are some examples of acute injuries:
Bruises

Sprains

Strains

Broken bones

Lacerations

Eye injuries

Concussions

Overuse injuries occur from repetitive actions that put too much stress on the musculoskeletal system. An overuse injury develops over time and cannot occur suddenly, "out-of-the blue".

Signs and symptoms are often vague and will have a gradual on set after many repetitions of a specific movement. Most likely the pain will start out being a dull, aching pain and will gradually increase to sharper pains if not treated. Overuse injuries must not be dismissed as "nuisance problems" of little medical consequence.

For example, Ted is the pitcher for his little league baseball team. It is now almost the end of the season and his shoulder hurts whenever he pitches. He noticed a slight soreness and aching all through the season but never said anything about the pain. The pain has steadily increased and he now feels it constantly. This is an overuse injury because it has increased over the course of the season, is localized to a specific area and movement, and had no single traumatic blow to cause an acute injury.

Re-injuries are simply the recurrence of an injury before or after it has healed. Re-injuries can occur to either acute or overuse injuries. Speak to an injury lawyer now.