Sports Medicine is a misconstrued specialty and confused to be the domain of Orthopaedic and Arthroscopy based surgeons. Sports Medicine is a multi disciplinary science which primarily comprises of three broad specialties- Exercise Physiology, Orthopaedic Medicine(conservative / non operative orthopedics) and Allied Medicine ,further it includes sub specialties of Sports Medical emergencies, Sports Psychology, Sports Nutrition, Biomechanics and Pharmacology (Doping) related to sports.
The primary tenet of Sports Medicine is helping a person perform to his or her maximum, based on the physiological parameters, injury management or by working on modifiable factors influencing performance. To elaborate further a Sports Medicine specialist should be able to test and evaluate a Physiological parameter specific to a sports discipline and suggest methods of further improvement. In terms of injuries the most important factor to determine is the cause of the injury which might be due to external factors such as inappropriate training methods, incorrect footwear, a racquet size or grip or a training surface which might be a factor besides looking for internal factors such as limb length misalignments or reduced strength or flexibility. Merely treating an in injury might not be the correct approach as most sports injuries are overuse or due to repeated activities. In fact most sports injuries are Grade 1 or 2 injuries which can be managed conservatively. The most important aspect of injury management is return to sport in the shortest possible time with adequate rehabilitation of the injury.
If we go through the sociology of sports and sports performance by Nations performing well in Olympic and International events it will be noticed that they all have an excellent sports medicine and sports sciences program incorporated. All nations excelling in sports such as US,UK, Australia, China, Japan , Korea, erstwhile USSR, old Eastern bloc countries and even tiny nations such as Cuba have such a sports medicine and sports sciences program.
Sports Medicine classically is for the overall performance of an athlete with a holistic approach. Ideally sports medicine is to ‘identify, nurture, perform and retire’ in the context of the sportsperson. Sports medicine begins right from the stage of talent identification or identifying the best sports for a given athlete based on various physiological parameters. These athletes now need to be nurtured in terms of correct training methods, adequate nutrition, prevention and treatment of injuries, regular physical and clinical assessments. Now the stage is set for the sportsperson to perform, with all physiological systems adequately firing, injuries well taken care of and rehabilitated, all nutritional parameters adequate for performance and psychologically tuned to hit the podium. Finally when the athlete plans to call it a day he should be gradually weaned of high load training and put on adequate exercises with all injuries rehabilitated and long term action plan for chronic injuries.
At the level of high performance sports, Sports medicine is a multidisciplinary specialty which consists of exercise physiology, rehabilitation medicine, physical trainers, physical therapists, nutritionists, psychologist and biomechanics with the sports medicine specialist integrating all these inputs for a positive outcome.
In summary Sports medicine is a multidisciplinary clinical and academic specialty of medicine dealing with health promotion for the general population by stimulating a physically active lifestyle and diagnosis, treatment, prevention and rehabilitation following injuries or illnesses from participation to physical activities, exercises and sport at all levels.
Therefore to spread awareness of the importance of sports medicine right from identifying the right sports to a child, nurturing a budding sportsperson, managing a sports injury, correct nutrition, information on Doping etc its best to start at the level of schools, coaching clubs, entry level sports events where the availability of this specialty is conveyed .Also sports federations and sports bodies need to mandate the requirement of sports sciences and sports medicine in their training curricula and finally regular updates to the public via various forms of media highlighting various success stories of individuals benefitting from sports medicine.
