The dilemma of sports medicine

As a medical doctor or a therapist working in the field of sports medicine, we are constantly subjected to major challenges and dilemmas. On the one hand, we try to use evidence-based treatments to cure injuries or medical problems in our sports medicine patients to have them recover and return to sports. On the other hand, we are getting pressure from the athletes, coaches, and club-officials/sponsors to get the athlete ready for competition as quickly as possible, even when there is no documented cure or when the known regeneration time is far longer that the athlete and (very often) the people around them can accept. Often, placebo (or superficial undocumented activities used as "treatment") is used by doctors to help the athletes. The insightful doctor knows when to use harmless "treatments" and when to abstain from the use of undocumented procedures (e.g., injections, infusions, some surgery) that can potentially cause side effects. It should be a goal for sports medicine doctors to encourage research towards any treatment procedure where no evidence exists so far. Clearly, the practice of sports medicine takes place in the real world, and there is a constant pressure on the sports physician—not the least due to economic interests in top sports. Doctors are often put under pressure or may even be overruled regarding how quickly and how much an athlete recovering from an injury can be active in competitive sports. It can be tempting as a therapist to quietly accept this and go into "treatment" action before scientific proof is established. Nevertheless, it is important to "fight back" and insist on the scientific basis of all treatments including in sports medicine. Many sports injuries have well-documented treatments today, but we are still not in a perfect shape. Even the best-documented treatments reveal a success rate of 70%-80%, leaving a substantial number of athletes "un-healed," and several treatments show a large variation in the treatment response of the individual athlete. Whereas this can seem frustrating and often will challenge the treatment alliance between doctor and athletes, it should be considered a stimulus to investigate combinations of treatments as well as trying to identify specific markers for the individual that can differentiate the treatment in the individual athlete. The better the theoretical basis for tissue recovery and the clinical rehabilitation in relation to sports injury can interact with each other, the more academic credibility the sports medicine area will get, and in the long run, this will lead to treatments that help the athletes the most.
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Aiheet: urheilulääketiede tehtävä vamma vahinko hoito
Aihealueet: biologiset ja lääketieteelliset tieteet
DOI: 10.1002/tsm2.39
Julkaisussa: Translational Sports Medicine
Julkaistu: 2018
Vuosikerta: 1
Numero: 5
Sivuja: 183
Julkaisutyypit: artikkeli
Kieli: englanti (kieli)
Taso: keskitaso