What Is Sports Medicine?
If your child is injured while doing any type of physical activity, you may be advised to see a sports medicine healthcare provider for treatment. This could be exercising or playing sports.
Sports medicine specialists
Sports medicine healthcare providers have special training to help injured people get moving again as soon as possible. They are experts in preventing illness and injury in active people. Sports medicine healthcare providers do work with professional athletes. But they also treat children and teens involved in sports and adults who exercise for personal fitness. They also treat people who have physically demanding jobs, like construction workers.
Sports medicine is not a medical specialty itself. Most sports medicine healthcare providers are certified in other specialties. These can be internal medicine or emergency medicine. They can also be family medicine, or another specialty. Then they get more training. Other providers specialize in treating injuries in children and teens. Their growing bodies can be quite different from those of adults. These specialists are usually board-certified in pediatrics or family medicine and also have training in sports medicine. Some sports medicine providers have surgical training., The training is usually as orthopedic surgeons.
Other experts who are not medical doctors may work with a sports medicine specialist to provide care including:
Physical therapists : They help people rehabilitate and recover from injuries.
Certified athletic trainers : These trainers provide rehab exercise routines to help people regain strength. They also develop conditioning programs to prevent future injury.
Nutritionists : They may help with needed weight loss or weight gain. They can provide dietary advice to help people.
