• 24 Sep 2020
• |
• By Admin

The Role Of Physiotherapy In Sports Injuries: Treatment, Prevention, Rehabilitation

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Definition Of Sports Injury

Sports injuries happen when a body part is made to experience a force that is greater than its capacity to structurally withstand. As the name suggests, sports and activities are the reason for this type of injury, and is fairly common, across the world.

It can happen due to lack of activity from the patient before undergoing a sports activity, overtraining, lack of conditioning, improved technique of conducting a sporting activity, or simply an accident while indulging in sports.

Some very common types of sports injuries are sprains, tears, fractured bones, bruises and strain. Soft tissues such as muscles, ligaments, tendons, fascia, and bursae are the most vulnerable to sports injuries.

There are mainly two types of sports injuries: Acute and Chronic.

Suddenly an awkward landing can lead to a sprained ankle, and this is acute sports injury.

Whereas repeated overuse of muscles or muscle groups or joints can lead to chronic sports injury, such playing tennis with a wrong technique for years, can lead to tennis elbow, a chronic sports injury.

Physiotherapy For Treating Sports Injury

Experts recommend 5 types of physiotherapy exercises for treating sports injuries:

• Range Of Motion (ROM): During Range Of Motion exercises, physiotherapists are able to reduce stiffness of muscles, and joints arising from sports injuries. Depending on the type of injury, ROM can be active (when patient does the exercises by own) or passive (when the physiotherapist conducts the exercises)

• Strengthening: Using a range of exercises, a physiotherapist is able to strengthen the weak muscles and joints. There are two types of strengthening exercises: Static and Dynamic. In static, pressure is applied on the muscles without any movement of the joints such as squat position or push-up position. Walking, running and lifting weights are examples of active strengthening exercises that keeps the muscles in movement.

• Low Level Laser: In case of musculoskeletal sports injuries, low level laser can be applied, wherein the power of light is used to reduce inflammation and muscle pain.

• Ice Pack: This can be the first treatment for any sports injury. Applying a pack of ice in the impacted area can reduce excessive swelling.

• Hot Pack: In case of chronic sports injury, which has been lasting for more than 3 months, hot packs can be applied to provide relief from stiffness and pain.

Physiotherapy For Preventing Sports Injury & Rehabilitation

Besides treating sports injuries, physiotherapy plays a very crucial role in preventing sports injuries in a methodological way, and rehabilitation of the patients gradually and with confidence.

In 1992, Van Mechelen proposed a 4-step sports injury prevention model, which is widely used by physiotherapists worldwide:

• Find out the extent of sports injury in a set of the population via surveillance
• Identifying the risk factors for injury in a population
• Development and validation of strategies for preventing injuries
• Measuring the impact of the strategies to prevent injuries via surveillance methods

Likewise, physiotherapy is deployed for the rehabilitation of the patients who have recovered from sports injuries. Depending on the extent of the injury, physiotherapists can create a strategy for rehabilitation of the patient, in stages.

The process can include mobilization, strengthening exercises, kinetic chain exercises (open/closed), sports specific drills, functional recovery exercises, muscle conditioning and more.

For more information on sports injury treats, prevention and rehabilitation, consult with our expert physiotherapists right here.