Sports medicine deals with the treatment and prevention of
injuries incurred while participating in sports. Its patients include the "elite" or professional
athlete as well as regular and occasional amateur participants. The field also concerns the methodology of scientific research to determine the causes of
Sports injuries. In recent years, sports medicine has spread from orthopedics and the treatment of musculoskeletal injuries to almost all branches of medicine.
CLASSIFICATIONS OF SPORTS
Sports can be classified in various ways, based on the physical and mental
demands imposed on the participants, environmental demands such as playing conditions and equipment, and rules changes. Mechanically, sports can be categorized according to the kinds of movements used. Each individual sport utilizes a unique combination of basic motions, including stance, walking, running, jumping, kicking, and throwing. These basic motions have all been rigidly defined for scientific study. A sport may involve one, some, or all of these motions.
Sports that place heavy demands on one part of an athlete's body may overload that part and produce an overuse injury, such as "tennis elbow" and "swimmer's shoulder." Baseball is a "throwing" sport and certain overuse injuries to the shoulder and elbow might be expected. But volleyball and golf use some variation of the same basic throwing motion as baseball, and shoulder and elbow injuries also occur in these sports.
BODY TYPE AND RISK FACTORS
To fully understand the nature of a particular sports injury, one must study the athlete as well as the sport. The musculoskeletal system is a complex system of
muscle segments, each related to the function of others through connecting bones and articulations. Pathological states of the musculoskeletal system are reflected in "deficits" or weaknesses in key muscle segments that may be distant from the site of pathology or trauma. The risk factors for any sport can then be assessed by collating the performance demands that produce characteristic injuries with the risk factors that might predispose an athlete to injury.
Two very interesting and somewhat interrelated characteristics are strength and flexibility. Strength is a requirement in virtually all athletic activities and can be defined in a number of ways. It may be used as the maximal force an isolated muscle can exert against resistance in one effort, or the average or summation of a series of efforts, requiring more and more endurance. Stronger muscles improve performance in many sports and may also serve as better protectors of the links that they activate. Consequently, athletes with strength deficits in key muscle groups may be prone to injury. That is why rehabilitation of an injured athlete is centered on rebuilding lost muscle strength prior to releasing the athlete to return to the sport.
An athlete who lacks sufficient
flexibility may be subject to muscle "pulls" or strains. Rehabilitation of this athlete will involve a progressive program of stretching exercises to lessen the chance for recurrent muscle
injury on return to competition. Children seem particularly susceptible to injury during "growth spurts" when muscles are relatively "overstretched" on rapidly growing bones.
There are a variety of techniques to measure and develop flexibility. Stretching overloads the muscle and connective tissue and causes it to lengthen beyond its normal "resting length," promoting flexibility. Active and passive techniques have been shown to be effective in developing flexibility.
With the great increase in women participating in sports, sports medicine has been taking a closer look at the female athlete. From toddler to senior citizen, from novice to professional, millions of women now exercise regularly and compete in a variety of sports. The result is a generation of women who are stronger and healthier, physically and mentally. Old myths that menstruation, pregnancy, and even menopause shouprohibit women from athletics have now been abandoned. In fact, the latest research suggests that record-breaking athletic performances by women are advancing at a faster rate than men's and, in some areasÑfor example, endurance swimmingÑthey have actually overtaken men's.
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