Sports Medicine

Sports medicine specializes in preventing, diagnosing and treating injuries related to participating in sports and/or exercise, specifically the rotation or deformation of joints or muscles caused by engaging in such physical activities.

Sports injuries are injuries that occur to athletes participating in sporting events. In many cases, these types of injuries are due to overuse of a part of the body when participating in a certain activity. For example, runner's knee is a painful condition generally associated with running, while tennis elbow is a form of repetitive stress injury at the elbow, although it does not often occur with tennis players. Other types of injuries can be caused by a hard contact with something. This can often cause a broken bone or torn ligament or tendon

Sports injuries can be broadly classified as either traumatic or overuse injuries. Traumatic injuries account for most injuries in contact sports such as Association football, rugby league, rugby union, Australian rules football, Gaelic football and American football because of the dynamic and high collision nature of these sports. These injuries range from bruises and muscle strains, to fractures and head injuries.


A bruise or contusion is damage to small blood vessels which causes bleeding within the tissues. A muscle strain is a small tear of muscle fibers and a ligament sprain is a small tear of ligament tissue. The bodys response to these sports injuries is the same in the initial five day period immediately following the traumatic incident - inflammation.

Signs and symptoms

Inflammation is characterized by pain, localized swelling, heat, redness and a loss of function.

Treatment

Sports injuries can be treated and managed by using the P.R.I.C.E.R... DR. ABC and T.O.T.A.P.S regimes:

  1. P - Protect
  2. R - Rest
  3. I - Ice
  4. C - Compression
  5. E - Elevation
  6. R - Referral
  7. D - Danger
  8. R - Response
  9. A - Airway
  10. B - Breathing
  11. C - Circulation
  12. T - Talk
  13. O - Observe
  14. T - Touch
  15. A - Active movement
  16. P - Passive movement
  17. S - Skills test

The inflammatory stage typically lasts around 5 days and all treatment during this time is designed to address the cardinal signs of inflammation pain, swelling, redness, heat and a loss of function.
Compression sportswear is becoming very popular with both professional and amateur athletes. These garments are thought to both reduce the risk of muscle injury and speed up muscle recovery.