Bingham Healthcare’s Orthopedic Institute & Sports Medicine has a team of caring and compassionate sports medicine specialists. They work with professional athletes, student athletes, and people of all ages who work hard or lead active lifestyles or both.
What is Sports Medicine?
Sports medicine is the practice of specialized treatment and prevention of injuries and illness resulting from athletic activities. Its focus is on improving the body’s ability to perform, recover from injuries, and prevent future injuries. While professional athletes use sports medicine to help boost their performance or reduce injury-healing time, you don’t have to be a professional or student athlete to seek help from our sports medicine specialists.
The sports medicine professionals at Bingham Healthcare’s Orthopedic Institute & Sports Medicine can help you achieve personal goals, regain full function after an injury, and increase mobility.
What is a Sports Medicine Specialist?
A sports medicine specialist is a physician who specializes in the non-surgical treatment of sports-related conditions. They are ideal not only for professional athletes, but also active individuals and weekend warriors, and help patients maximize function while minimizing disability and time away from sports, work, or school. They promote lifelong fitness and wellness while encouraging prevention of illness and injury. They coordinate care with physical therapists and athletic trainers. When surgery is needed, they facilitate prompt referrals to skilled orthopedic surgeons.
Who Should See a Sports Medicine Specialist?
An injury can keep anyone from doing the things they love. The same expertise used for competitive athletes benefits patients who have sustained an injury from non-competitive activities.
According to the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, approximately 90 percent of all sports injuries are non-surgical, and can be properly treated by a sports medicine physician.
When to See a Sports Medicine Physician
- A sports medicine physician is qualified to administer medical and injection therapies for osteoarthritis.
- Ankle fracture or muscle sprain
- Athletes diagnosed with asthma or diabetes
- Athletic back injuries
- Back injury
- Concussion or head injury
- Knee or shoulder injury or fracture
- Looking for a “Return to Play” decision
- Nutrition (gaining weight, losing weight, eating disorders, supplements, banned performance enhancing drugs)
- Osgood-Schlatter disease
- Plantar fasciitis and Achilles injuries
- Running Injuries
- Seeking an exercise program to increase personal activity or injury prevention
- Stress fractures
- Tendon injuries and chronic tendon pain
- Tennis/golfer elbow
How Can a Sports Medicine Specialist Take Care of You?
The first step is to obtain the correct diagnosis. The history and physical examination is the most important part, but the Bingham Healthcare sports medicine team also has several other modalities to assist them. Some of these include:
Imaging
- X-ray, in office
- Ultrasound, in office
- MRI
Laboratory evaluation
Osteopathic exam
Surgical musculoskeletal (MSK) injuries/disorders. About 90 percent of MSK injuries are nonsurgical and your sports medicine specialist will work closely with orthopedic surgeons to get you expedited surgical care when necessary.
