A New Gold Standard for Sports Physicals?
Student athletes and parents are all too familiar with the yearly requirement to obtain a Sports Physical. They rush to meet the deadline to get this paper signed so that they are clear to play their preferred sport(s) for the upcoming season. The Sports Physical or Pre-participation Physical Examination (PPE) is meant to provide reassurance to the athletes, parents, and coaches that it is safe for the athlete to participate in a particular sport. Year after year, however, athletes suffer from non-contact injuries or worse, season-ending injuries.
Why does this happen and what can be done about it?
Why the Sports Physical Did Not Alert Us To Injury Risks
If you’ve taken a look at the Sports physical form and questionnaire, you may notice that many of the questions focus on heart and lung health, family and personal histories, and current symptoms. It involves es a detailed history and physical exam to ultimately reduce the risk of the athlete passing out on the field from an underlying health condition. This Is important! We’ve all heard of at least on story of a student or professional athlete passing out due to underlying heart, lung, or neurological disease. The PPE is great for reducing this risk.
But what about the risk of actual injuries? Does the physical exam assess for that?
Outside of having already been injured and looking for major deficits, the answer is typically NO.
At Spark Performance and Wellness, after you are evaluated by our Medical Doctor, you are then seen by our Sports Chiropractor, who provides a sports injury risk assessment. This thorough evaluation will screen an athlete for movement errors associated with injuries like ACL tears, muscle strains, ankle, knee and hip injuries, or other possible season-ending injuries. If a deficit is found, a treatment plan is developed and started the same day. We then keep our athletes healthy on a maintenance plan. Of our athletes, 0% have experienced injuries that have required them to miss significant playing time.
If you or an athlete you know are in need of a Sports Physical and looking for true injury prevention, contact us today!
