Sports Therapy: The Ins and Outs

Sports therapy is a form of physical therapy that treats several muscular complaints, such as posture complaints, back pain, and occasionally torn muscles that are yielded by exerting physical effort. It is the job of the sports therapist to assist muscularly wounded patients with their recovery and return them back to their previous full performance. It is specially designed for those who live active lifestyles or for those who are regular participants in impact sports. The goal and purpose is to return a wounded athlete to the field as soon as possible with minimal disruption to their lives by using physical therapy is engineered to heal the body of physical injuries as soon as possible.

Sports therapy is always an option for the physically active and has several phases: prevention, evaluation, treatment and rehabilitation, performance enhancement, and education. The initial level, prevention, focuses on eliminating any possible accidents the athlete may face by participating in their sport. This level is often eyed carefully since it prevents the necessity for the other four levels. However, if prevention is overlooked or an accident cannot be helped, the second level, evaluation, steps in. In this level, the injury is generally assessed by a trained physical therapist that is able to declare if the injury is active, meaning it was just achieved or chronic, which in turn could mean that it has been an ongoing issue for some time.

The physical therapist is then able to make the recommendation for the athlete to receive surgery or to pursue another, less invasive strategy all together. Regardless of the choices given, the average injury usually results in treatment and rehabilitation — this is the third and most crucial level for an injury to heal properly. At this stage, the injured party is given a personally designed program for recovery based on how their injury happened, past medical history, and how their injury affects them. The program is designed to rehabilitate and manage the injury, depending on the severity. If the person simply twisted their ankle, their program would be much simpler than someone who severely hurt their back or tore more than one muscle.

Many times the sports therapy specialist will attempt to design a recovery program that allows the patient to continue their participation in sports; however. there are occasions where that is not possible, such as situations where the patient has an inflamed disk in their back and the patient must stay away from sports until their injury is healed.

The final level, and certainly a very important one, is education of athletes, coaches, and parents about preventing sports related injuries. This final level assists the first steo tremendously in teaching those interested in sports about the necessary safety precautions they must take as well as assisting the other levels of sports therapy for those who sustain an injury. Education is also useful to advance the technology necessary to sports therapist who is always looking for better and safer ways to return athletes with injuries to their game as soon as possible.