What Is Sports Medicine?
As America becomes more and more fitness conscious, we find ourselves watching more sports, reading more sports, and playing more sports. With broader media coverage and the availability of neighborhood parks, playing fields, school teams, and city leagues, people are participating in ever increasing numbers in recreational and competitive athletics at all ages.
Ours is a mobile and recreational lifestyle, to be sure. Whether we play for the thrill of competition or exercise for the personal satisfaction of feeling fit and vigorous, occasionally our parts breakdown. Enter the concept of sports medicine.
What is sports medicine, any way? As long as there have been sports, there have been physicians who treat sports injuries. Today, the specialty of sports medicine in our health care system is becoming more technically refined and more widely recognized.
The most apparent practice of sports medicine involves care of acute athletic injuries. Fractured bones, torn ligaments, concussions, and shin splints are common place. But the needs of serious and recreational athletes may be unique, and treatment modalities have been developed for many athletic injuries designed to return an individual to performance or competition as early and safely as possible. This requires a full understanding of the athlete'' goals, opportunities, and motivation. It requires earlier intervention, close monitoring of progress, and coordinated formulation of rehabilitation means to restore function safely and to prevent deconditioning of uninjured parts through neglect or disuse.
But sports medicine involves more than just treatment of acute sports injuries. It also involves the recognition and treatment of chronic or recurring injuries which take their toll on the athlete over time. It involves specific attention to conditioning requirements as well as education-preventive medicine through awareness.
Sports brings out the best in people through a vigorous spirit of preparation and competition, pushing the performance of bodies and minds to their maximum potential. Exercise is important for good health and health is important for good exercise. Regular inspection of all athletic equipment, including one's body and health is important for proper maintenance and repair. An unstable knee, torn shoulder cuff, heart murmur, or hernia, if recognized early, might be treated or protected before worse problems develop. Recognition of weaknesses such as eyesight, asthma, flat feet, or old injuries requires modification of techniques, equipment or training regimens to avoid injury and prolong the enjoyment of athletics.
Sports medicine, then, is more than just standing on the sidelines of a football game; it is more than fixing a torn knee cartilage; it is more than a cortisone injection or a prescribed carbohydrate load. In today's expanding world of sports participation, sports medicine represents a comprehensive and responsive network of special expertise devoted to preserving and restoring sound health for optimal performance in exercise and athletic competition.
We at Scott Orthopedics are confident of taking on this challenge and providing comprehensive, innovative "total sports care" to our patients and community.
