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| The last column discussed what sports injuries are and how to assess their severity. This column will tell you what to do when you have an acute sports injury. The three main goals... read more |
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| Acute Sports Injuries are traumatic in nature. Some are very dramatic such as when Mike Foligno broke his leg at centre ice the season before last. Although his was a bone injury m... read more |
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Shelagh
Baker |
Shelagh graduated from the University of Alberta in 1983, completed a Graduate Diploma in Manipulative Physiotherapy from the University of Sydney, Australia in 1991 and Level 1, 2... read more |
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| » view all articles |
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Chronic Injuries | Tuesday, April 11, 2006 |
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 The last two columns talked about acute injuries which occur
suddenly through a specific event. Chronic injuries occur over a time
period, not obviously related to a single isolated event. The symptoms
develop slowly and will gradually worsen with continued use.
Poor treatment or incomplete rehabilitation of acute injuries may lead
to chronic injuries.
As the end of baseball season approaches, we hear of many
pitchers who either can not pitch or are not pitching effectively
due to pain in their shoulder or elbow. this is most commonly
caused by tendinitis in the affected area. Tendinitis is the most common
of the chronic injuries. Consistent microtrauma to a tendon
will lead to inflammation which will cause pain using that structure.
The pain can occur during the sport or after. The pain may even be
worse the morning after such as in Achilles tendinitis. It may also
cause pain during daily activities such as lifting a coffee cup when
you have tennis elbow.(tendinitis in the elbow)
In Sports Medicine we are dealing mostly with this overuse syndrome.
Whenever we see a patient with an overuse injury we must look at the
predisposing and precipitating factors. Unless we can isolate these
factors we can not effectively treat the injury and allow the athlete
to continue training at his/her appropriate level.
Once you have decided what these predisposing and precipitating
factors are for the injury, the treatment is fairly easy. The main priority
is to correct any and all of these factors. The most important thing is
to seek appropriate advice from your physician or a Sports Medicine
Physician and therapist.
The next column will discuss the most common predisposing and
precipitating factors.
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