FEELING GOOD MedSport physical therapist measures muscle strength. SP OR T S M EDICI N E VICTORIA BELYEU DIAZ Special to The Jewish News ip retend you've just taken a nasty spill out on the slopes. Your knee feels as if it may have exploded, and looks to be at least twice its normal size. Chances are, you're about to be- come one of a growing number of sports-minded Americans who enter sports medicine centers each year for treatment of battered knees, pulled shoulder muscles, twisted ankles, broken bones, shin splints, tennis el- bows, and a host of other sports-related injuries. As you hobble into one of the centers examining rooms, you may meet a limping defensive lineman on the way out, or a high school basket- ball star with his arm in a sling. You may even spot a professional ball player or two. Chances are many of the patients you'll see will be individual, week-end athletes. In your course of out-patient treatment the first person you'll see will probably be a staff physician in the field of sports medicine. "When we see the injured athlete initially, what we want to do first, of course, is relieve inflammation," says Dr. Nathan Gross, a physiatrist, a spe- MedSport athletic trainer fitting an athletic knee brace. cialist in physical medicine and re- habilitation. He works mostly with have the exercise equipment we can cardio-vascular fitness, and tradi- high-school-level and recreational use, and also modalities of treatment tional weights to train smaller muscle athletes at Cottage Hospital Sports like ice, heat, electrical stimulation of groups. Medicine Center in Grosse Pointe, and the muscles." "One of the advantages of a sports in Sinai Hospital's sports medicine The exercise equipment Gross medicine center is the expertise of the programs in Detroit and West Bloom- mentions would be something you'd people there, the ability of those people field. come to know very well over the course who work in that special field to make "Doing that might mean prescrib• of treatment, which might last as long a highly-precise diagnosis of an in- ing rest, and maybe some anti- as ten-12 weeks, should your injury be jury," says Gross. "You'd be surprised inflammatory medication to reduce a serious one. at the number of athletes who go pain and swelling. After we come to a In most sports medicine centers, around thinking they have tendonitis, diagnosis of the injury, we prescribe you'd probably find an Orthotron for instance, when what they really the individualized treatment pro- machine for leg strengthening exer- have is a stress fracture." grams, try to get motion back in an cises, along with a full range of Dr. Robert Burks, physician for affected joint, for example, work on Nautilus equipment, Mini-Gyms for all Wayne State University athletic strengthening, co-ordinating through low back conditioning, exercise bikes teams, and head of the Sports various therapeutic exercises. We and pulse monitors, treadmills for Medicine Center at Harper Hospital, 54 Friday, January 2, 1987 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS says that those physicians familiar with the field of sports medicine will most likely prescribe treatment utiliz- ing the services of physical therapists and trainers. "That's one of the main advan- tages of having sports-related injuries treated at a sports medicine center," he says. "Elsewhere, a doctor might prescribe just rest and medication for certain types of sports-related injuries. A sports physician may not prescribe total rest (of the arm), for something like tennis elbow, but would utilize other exercises to still keep the arm in shape while the elbow healed." "Even though athletes may be in- jured, they still want to keep their fit- ness level up," says Tony Stachurski, Administrative Director at the Uni- versity of Michigan's new 12,000 sq. ft. MedSport Center in Ann Arbor, "They don't want to become de-conditioned. So, at MedSport, we provide alternate ways for them to train. In other words, we don't just treat an injured knee, for instance. While we're getting that knee in shape, we want to keep every- thing else going well, too." While you're getting that knee in shape, you may want to take a look around and see what additional serv- ices these high-tech treatment centers offer for the community. You may find some surprises. For instance, some sports medicine centers treat patients who have never suffered a sports-related injury. In fact, some of them aren't athletes, either. "We have several people here who are recovering from heart attacks or bypass surgery, or who have ex- tremely high blood pressure, and were referred here so that they could get in on thine kind of regimented pro- grams," Says Stachurski. "We also have\five \heart transplant patients in our program right now, along with some people who are awaiting trans- plants and need to be in better condi- tion before they go in for surgery.