Sports Medicine Rehabilitation

Sports medicine rehabilitation helps you recover from a sports injury and return to play safely. In addition to comprehensive evaluation and treatment, the sports medicine specialists and physical therapists at Southern Oregon Orthopedics emphasize patient education to help you prevent future injuries.

You need sports medicine rehabilitation if you have a sports injury and want to return to your preinjury level of activity without risk of reinjury. Sports injuries are musculoskeletal injuries that occur during sports and exercise.

A sports injury may result from a fall, direct contact, or using improper gear. Lack of conditioning or failure to warm up and cool down effectively can also lead to a sports injury. Acute sports injuries like sprains, tears, and fractures happen suddenly, while chronic injuries like tendonitis result from overuse.

Sports medicine rehabilitation consists of nonoperative or postoperative treatment.

Nonoperative treatment is for sprains, strains, and muscle imbalances. The therapy focuses on postural correction and proper stabilization of your joints.

First, your physical therapist evaluates your movement patterns and develops an individualized treatment plan. They begin with modalities to reduce pain and swelling, like ice and heat.

As your pain subsides, you progress to conditioning and sports-specific exercises to make sure you’re at full strength when you return to your sport.

Postoperative sports medicine rehabilitation is for more severe injuries that require surgery, such as tears and fractures. You follow the timeline associated with your particular surgical procedure, which the team at Southern Oregon Orthopedics discusses with you in detail at your initial evaluation.

In general, the protocol for postoperative sports medicine rehabilitation includes:

• Promoting healing at the surgical site, reducing swelling, and improving mobility
• Retraining muscle and movement patterns and completing daily tasks
• Continued strengthening, an early return to activities, and endurance training
• Higher-level strengthening, sport-specific movements, planning a return to sport

The final phase of sports medicine rehabilitation includes return-to-sport testing, where your physical therapist deems you fit to resume sports participation at your preinjury level.