Playing contact sports can lead to muscle, ligament, and joint injuries. Injuries to these areas can seriously affect their functioning capabilities, disturbing the player’s daily life or reducing the ability to carry out standard tasks. Such injuries can be classified into the following two groups:
Grade 1: Muscle injuries that do not involve any tearing. This may cause slight pain but leave function largely unaffected.
Grade 2: Muscle injuries that involve slight tearing and are painful to the touch. These may also involve pain or bruising but movement and use is mostly unaffected.
Grade 3: Moderate muscle tears that significantly impinge upon movement and result in noticeable bruising.
Grade 4: Severe muscle tears that cause joint dislocation and extreme pain. These injuries significantly affect the patient’s daily life as the use of the injured limb is drastically reduced leading to difficulty even ascending or descending steps. This type of injury generally requires surgical treatment.
Treatment for grade 1-3 injuries depends on the individual’s muscle and joint situation. If sufficient support can be provided to the injured limb, the individual may be able to lead a relatively normal life. However, injured athletes who are reliant on the injured limb may require surgery to repair the damage and restore function.
These injuries are caused by overstretching muscles. This can occur suddenly and result in the blood vessels surrounding the muscle being torn. However, strains can also occur as a result of sustained and consistent muscle usage, known as overuse strains. This includes, for example, weight training with weights that are too heavy or repeated exercises that cause muscular bruising to occur. Common examples include hamstring and quadricep strains.
These are injuries to the tendons or joints, such as a torn Achilles tendon or sprained ankle, and include most of the injuries to the ankles and knees. The sports most commonly responsible for injuries to the ankles and knees are those which involve contact or collisions, such as football. Individual sports that involve whole body movement as well as joint twisting and rotation, such as golf, can also cause this type of knee or ankle injury.
These refer to injuries to the joint itself as well as areas affecting the large ligaments and muscle groups that work together with the joint, such as the quadriceps and hamstring. If any of these moving parts sustain damage or are unable to function as before, it can lead to knee instability. Knee joints consist of 4 large ligaments: lateral collateral ligament, medial collateral ligament, anterior cruciate ligament, and posterior cruciate ligament. Injuries or tears to any of these ligaments can result in dislocation that prevents the patient from being able to engage in sports until it is fully healed.
The meniscus in the knee, which is responsible for reducing friction and impact in the knee when jumping, descending steps, and jogging, is also prone to damage. The 4 levels of injury mentioned previously are also used to describe any injury affecting this section of the knee. Additionally, the synovial fluid that lubricates the joint can also be injured, making it another factor to consider when diagnosing a knee injury.
This type of injury tends to affect runners, who may feel a pain in and around the patella. This occurs particularly when ascending or descending steps, or when standing up after sitting down for an extended period. The causes of such an injury can be associated with running up and down steps when training or increasing distance in a training regime before the body is prepared to do so, and can cause issues affecting muscle groups, such as core body muscles and quadriceps, or flat footedness.
Athletes who are frequently required to rotate their body at the hips, core, shoulders, or arms, such as when playing golf, may cause overstretching in the back muscles and lumbar vertebrae movement injuries. This is why most golfers tend to experience back pain at some point.
Muscle inflammation, tears, or bleeding can be caused by a collision or bruising and can affect any muscle group within the body.
The Achilles tendon is located at the back of the foot and connects the heel to the calf to support ankle movement. Sports that place the Achilles at the greatest risk of injury are those that involve jumping, such as badminton, basketball, and football.
Bone fractures can occur in the ankle, knee, or any other joint.
Joint dislocation, such as of the knee or shoulder, are common injuries affecting athletes.
This injury is most common among athletes who play sports reliant on constant shoulder movement, such as tennis and badminton. These repeated actions can easily lead to an overuse injury or joint impingement that can result in a torn muscle.
An initial assessment of any injury should include checking for swelling or pain and determining whether movement is impinged. Basic first aid can be administered according to the principles of PRICE, as follows:
It is undeniable that playing sports and exercising increases the risk of injury. However, preventive techniques should be employed to reduce this risk, whether that risk is from contact with other players or your own movements. If you are injured, be sure to seek the appropriate medical treatment from a specialist in sports injuries because damage left untreated can easily develop into a chronic condition. A specialist will be able to suggest ways to rehabilitate the injury, which can help restore normal function or even help you return stronger than before.
The FitLAB team at Bangkok’s Samitivej Hospital includes professionally trained specialists in treating sports injuries using the latest medical grade technologies. Our team consists of doctors, physiotherapists, and sports scientists, all highly trained and experienced in their field. Their first-hand understanding of the field of sports and exercise has helped them provide care for over 1,500 professional and amateur athletes (data from 2014–2019).
This care includes advice on the prevention of injury, suggestions on how to avoid repeat injuries, the creation of fitness assessment programs, injury treatments that are not solely reliant on surgery, recommendations on lifestyle adjustments to reduce usage of certain limbs, medication advice, and physiotherapy utilizing the latest equipment designed to rehabilitate and strengthen muscles. Patients requiring surgery can now undergo minimally invasive arthroscopic surgery. This technique reduces rehabilitation times, and provides surgeons a clearer view of the injury’s pathological state compared with traditional forms of open surgery. This means treatment is more accurate and efficient than ever. In addition, the rehabilitation following such procedures can often result in patients developing strength and endurance in their muscles that they previously found difficult to achieve. Even when surgery is not required, the experience and expertise of our team can be relied upon to diagnose each unique injury before creating a tailored rehabilitation program. This includes the use of specialized equipment and the latest medical grade technologies to enable a speedy return to the sports or physical activities the patient enjoyed prior to their injury.
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