How to Care For The Injured Athletes

Sporting injuries are common, everyone knows someone who has had a sporting accident. These injuries usually occur after the athlete has been using his/her bones and muscles repetitively and excessively, or if they do not warm up properly, particularly when the weather is cold. Physiotherapy is a way for sportsmen to rehabilitate themselves and to make sure that they will do not risk any more damage to their injury, so that they can get back to the sport they play as soon as possible. In order to make sure that the injury is handled quickly, the assessment of the injury must be done as soon as possible but with thorough efficiency so that further damage is not caused. After the assessment is finished the physiotherapist will start working with the athlete to get him/her to a point where they are functioning well before they give them a routine of exercises and treatments to complete, so that they can speed up the recovery process and strengthen the damaged area to minimise the risk of it recurring.

Sports injuries vary but often consist of sprains, knee pains or knee injuries, shoulder injuries, and tennis elbow. There are three different stages of a sprain. There is Grade 1 which is mild, Grade 2 which is moderate, and Grade 3 which is severe. There are a number of things you can do to prevent injury, including warm up correctly and eating right before you exercise. Knee pains often occur in runners when the knee cap misaligns with the groove it fits into and causes pain. Tennis elbow is not in fact caused by playing tennis; it is rather caused from repeating movements with the wrist like typing on the computer. Shoulder injuries are also common in sports where you use your arms a lot, with actions that can cause your rotator cuff to come out of place. A physical therapist will use different types of treatment, for pain and stiffness they will often use heat, ice, and ultrasound technology to heal the tissues. The other form is hands-on treatment such as massage and other methods to make the person relax, which helps to work the muscles more and gets the blood to circulate to the inured areas.

Treatments with the physiotherapist usually only last around 30 minutes but if the athlete wants to return to sports anytime soon he will have to work hard with his physiotherapist and make use of the available pain relief and support products. Also, if an athlete is injured very severely then his treatment would last longer than 30 minutes because that time is used to manage the pain and the amount of pain from a severe injury may need longer.