Local physicians ready and willing to help anyone with a musculoskeletal injury

Sports Medicine may have “sports” in the name, but that doesn’t mean this type of care is only for athletes.

“I almost wish that we were called musculoskeletal medicine,” says Dr. Aloiya Earl, orthopedic sports medicine specialist at Premier Health. “I mean, you certainly do not need to be an athlete to come in.”

Sports medicine physicians assist patients of varying activity levels with any condition of the musculoskeletal system, whether that’s pain or an injury of a bone, joint, ligament, tendon or muscle. While athletes are prone to these types of conditions, anyone who is active, enjoys exercise or has a job with lots of manual labor could face these injuries.

Luckily the Miami Valley is home to many sports medicine programs that can help athletes and non-athletes alike avoid or recover from a musculoskeletal issue.

Concussions

Concussions, while not uncommon in young athletes, can prove to be serious. Premier Health, Beacon Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine and Wright State Physicians are credentialed with ImPACT, a national concussion care program for high school, college and professional athletes.

“It allows us to use objective data to test athlete’s memory, response time, visual motor speed and all of these objective measures at baseline. And then after, as they’re recovering through their concussion, we have a little bit more evidence to help us guide athletes and active people back to their sport or exercise,” says Earl.

Because each concussion is different, this step-by-step approach ensures athletes get back to sports when they’re truly ready.

Other concussion programs include one offered by Kettering Health and the youth-focused program at Dayton Children’s.

Sports Performance

Sports medicine specialists and physical therapists can also assist athletes in getting to the next level when it comes to their performance.

Dayton Children’s offers a program called Sportsmetrics, a six-week program that incorporates proper stretching, special exercises and weight training to develop leg strength and decrease ACL and knee injuries. Kettering Health can help athletes with its baseball skills program and Dartfish, a program that allows you to break down your performance to 90 frames per second to analyze motions like your gait, golf swing or throw. Beacon employs certified athletic trainers, who specialize in five areas: prevention of athletic injuries; recognition, evaluation and immediate care of athletic injuries; rehabilitation and reconditioning of athletic injuries; health care administration; and professional development. And Premier Health’s Sports Performance Program is a one-on-one program that assesses an athlete’s performance and identifies areas to improve.

“For example, if an athlete wants to increase their vertical jump height, they’ll meet with these sports performance folks and talk about what specific strength training exercises and plyometric exercises they can do,” says Earl. “For runners, they can do a gait analysis to see if there’s anything with their gait that is either limiting their performance or potentially setting them up for risk of injury.”

Getting Active Again?

If you’re starting to work out more so you can enjoy the summer weather, there are a couple things you should keep in mind. Dr. Aloiya Earl of Premier Health has a couple tips to help you avoid injury while taking in the fresh air.

Start slow. Earl says that when COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, she and her team saw more and more patients with injuries after being sedentary for so long. “My best advice is to listen to your body and take it slow when you’re getting back into an exercise program,” she says.

Use the 10% rule. “So increasing your exercise frequency and intensity by about 10% each week. A runner, for example, they would increase their mileage 10% each week, or somebody who’s weightlifting trying to increase their weight load 10% each week,” she says.

Don’t be afraid to try something new. Strength training, for example, is a great way to exercise that’s also low impact. Other low impact activities include swimming, cycling, rowing and the elliptical. “If patients have questions about how to use certain machines or how to plan their workouts, we’re happy to see them for that, too,” adds Earl.

Nutrition and Fitness

Nutrition and fitness go hand-in-hand with injury prevention. Earl says that Premier takes a multidisciplinary approach to sports medicine, incorporating nutrition and mental health along with healing the injury.

“If an athlete is struggling to recover from an injury, we can talk about nutrition strategies, sleep strategies and address the mental health part of injury recovery as well to give that athlete a comprehensive treatment of their specific situation,” says Earl.

Kettering Health also emphasizes the importance of eating healthy and exercising often. The system offers a variety of nutrition programs, including metabolic rate evaluation and sports nutrition. It also hosts fitness classes. FITT for Life is held at Kettering Health Washington Township and focuses on strength, balance, coordination and flexibility. Therapy 2 Fitness can be found at Kettering Health’s Tipp City and Far Hills locations and is designed for those who have completed physical therapy and want to work on their own health goals.

Supporting Community

Another group that faces musculoskeletal injuries is first responders and public safety officers. Kettering Health and Premier Health both provide training and treatment for those groups.

Earl says that Premier’s program, called Healthy Heroes, takes a sports medicine team out into the community to fire stations instead of asking the firefighters to come to them.

“The sports medicine team goes out and says, ‘You know, does anyone here have any injuries they want to have evaluated?’ And they do an initial assessment. And then if they need follow-up care with a physician, they’ll set that up for them. So it makes it really convenient for the firefighters [since] they work very long shifts,” she says.

“I think that’s a great thing that our team does to get out to them and meet them where they are.”