Orthopedics & Rheumatology

Sports : Complementary Approaches

Sports medicine is the medical subspecialty that is generally concerned with one overarching mission: the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of illness and injury related to participation in any sports and athlete exercise. To accomplish a mission as comprehensive as this much depends on having a multidisciplinary, complementary approach to health care delivery that uses both operative procedures and nonsurgical techniques. Sports medicine provides a means of enhancing athletic performance while preventing athletic injury. All sports have a risk of injury. In general, the more contact in a sport, the greater the risk of a traumatic injury. Most frequent sports injuries are sprains, strains, and stress fractures caused when an abnormal stress is placed on tendons, joints, bones, and muscle.