What is Sports Medicine?
Sports medicine is specialized health care that focuses on athletic fitness and performance. One of the most significant aspects of sports medicine is diagnosing and treating sports injuries and getting you back in action.
Playing sports or being physically active increases your risk of injury compared to an inactive person. On the positive side, an energetic lifestyle is notably better for your general health.
Elite's sports medicine specialists aims to help your injuries heal as quickly as possible while avoiding any long-term effect on your performance. They also help prevent injuries and promote safe, effective training for athletes at all levels.
What are Sports Medicine Doctors?
Sports medicine doctors are orthopedists that have undergone additional training in conditions and injuries prevalent in sports. Elite's Nashville sports medicine specialists treat conditions of the knee, shoulder, elbow, hip, and more.
What Problems can Sports Medicine Doctors Treat?
The experts at Elite Sports Medicine + Orthopedics can treat acute injuries like sprains and fractures and damage that develops over time from repetitive strain and overuse. Common sports injuries include:
- Tendon strains
- Ligament sprains
- Soft tissue tears
- Fractures
- Dislocations
- Impact injuries
Certain injuries are more likely to affect you if you play sports, such as ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) sprains and meniscal tears in your knees, rotator cuff tears in your shoulders, and Achilles tendon injuries in your heels.
Sprains are injuries to your ligaments – the connective tissue that attaches the bones in your joints. It's often hard to know whether an injury like a swollen, severely painful ankle is due to a sprain or a fracture without an expert diagnosis.
Elite Sports Medicine + Orthopedics has state-of-the-art diagnostic imaging technology onsite to confirm the nature and extent of any tissue damage. An accurate diagnosis is essential to ensure you receive the most beneficial treatment.
What Treatments do Sports Medicine Specialists Use?
Treatments used in sports medicine vary according to the type of injury and its severity. Fractures are likely to need a cast to immobilize the bones while they mend, and if you have a severe fracture, you might need to have the bones manually or surgically realigned first.
Physical therapy forms the basis of most sports medicine treatment plans.
In addition to stretching and strengthening exercises tailored to your specific needs, the Elite Sports Medicine + Orthopedics physical therapy team specializes in rehabilitation from surgical interventions and prevention of future injuries.
Other sports medicine treatments that could be beneficial include:
- Epidural steroid injections
- Joint injections
- Regenerative medicine
- Radiofrequency ablation
In cases where these treatments aren't proving effective, the orthopedic surgeons at Elite Sports Medicine + Orthopedics specialize in performing minimally invasive surgery.
Schedule an Appointment With Our Sports Medicine Team in Tennessee
If you are an athlete who has recently been injured, it is important to talk to a sports medicine specialist right away. Our team of sports medicine specialists work with athletes of all different levels, including some of the best profressional athletes.
Our team is dedicated to get you back to doing what you love as soon as possible. To schedule an appointment with one of our sports medicine doctors in Nashville or Franklin, TN, call us or request an appointment online.
Our Sports Medicine Specialists
