Monday, October 30th 2023
Last week was a busy week, with scheduling and conducting another research interview and finishing a research assessment paper.
I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Robertson who owns his own clinic called TMI Sports Medicine and is the head team doctor for the Dallas Stars NHL. He is extremely knowledgeable about Sports Medicine, and provided me with a lot of helpful information for my Original Work project. I learned that ACL injuries are rare in hockey, and hockey injuries are different from most other injuries. For example, a player could get hit by a puck traveling at 100mph and fracture their ankle. However, it wouldn't always show on an x-ray rather an MRI with many micro-fractures. Despite the lack of ACL injuries present in Hockey, Dr. Robertson shared with me that the most common injury he treats in clinic is ACL tears. I learned about the important preventative methods therapists and trainers can use to help athletes avoid injury. He shared a lot of knowledge about how he treats and reconstructs ACL injuries. Most importantly I learned a lot about how to decrease the risk of re-injury and increase athletes' rate in which they return to play.
In the interview, Dr. Robertson talked about the ACL-RSI test he uses to determine if an athlete can return to play. I had heard about this test in my previous research, but since it is such a huge part of the recovery process I choose to research it more in depth for my research assessment paper. As a result I learned a lot about the psychological fears and factors that affect decreased rate of return to play. This is because this test measures the athletes confidence in their ability to perform and play their sport again. Psychological factors are a big part of returning to play. So, it is something that physical therapists help with and orthopedic sports medicine surgeons monitor to enable their patients to play the sports they love again. Physical therapists physically help the athlete increase their confidence through exercises that increase their trust in their knee. However, Orthopedic Sports Medicine doctors monitor the patients progress and determine the next courses of actions and ultimately when the athlete can return to play.
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