Sports Medicine & Arthroscopy
What is Sports Medicine ?
Sports Medicine is a separate branch of science which deals with problems of the athlete i.e. the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of injuries. This is vast and includes, but not restricted to, exercise physiology, relevant anatomy, sports mechanics, injuries & treatment.
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Sports medicine has come up as a branch separately owing to the escalation in competitive sports and technology to diagnose and treat it. As more is known about sports medicine, the branch has evolved with separate specialists for treatment and rehabilitation.
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Role of physical therapist and an Orthopedic surgeon are in coherence with Sports Medicine and neither of any can alone bring back the patient to field. Close synchrony of the Orthopedic surgeon along with identification of problems in the kinetic chains and supervised physiotherapy is essential to give early functional recovery in an athlete.
Why Sports Medicine ?
With more number of research publications and recent advances in every field, knowledge is progressing at a fast pace globally. To cater to every level of recreational and professional athlete, it is essential to develop this as a separate speciality. With growing interest in sports and exercises, injuries have become far more common.
What all is commonly treated?
All soft tissue and bony injuries that happen during sports(Bruises, contusions, sprains, strains, ligament and fractures) are considered sports injuries.
Overuse injuries find place in sports medicine commonly and physical therapy for diagnosis of bio-mechanical faults and its treatment forms an important part of the recovery in an athlete.
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Most Sports injuries do extremely well without surgeries, but some may require intervention in form of minimally invasive/ Arthroscopic surgeries. Post surgical rehab is considered as important as the surgery itself and recovery to sports depends on the quality of and dedication towards the exercise schedule.
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For people who do not wish to exercise post surgery, surgical intervention may be a wrong choice of treatment and the patient should be in sync with demand and expectations of the surgeon and physical therapist.
Surgical treatment of Sports Injuries?
Surgical treatment is essential in some conditions. They are different as per different joint.