Sports Medicine
Sports Medicine at HMC in Sugar Land
Ashish Vala M.D.
(832) 500-1335
What is Sports Medicine?
Sports medicine, also known as sport and exercise medicine (SEM), is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness and the treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise. Although most sports teams have employed team physicians for many years, it is only since the late 20th century that sports medicine has emerged as a distinct field of health care.
What a Sports Medicine Doctor Does
Sport and exercise medicine doctors are specialist physicians who have completed medical school, appropriate residency training and then specialize further in sports medicine or ‘sports and exercise medicine’ (the preferred term).
Specializing in the treatment of athletes and other physically active individuals, sports and exercise medicine physicians have extensive education in musculoskeletal medicine. SEM doctors treat injuries such as muscle, ligament, tendon and bone problems, but may also treat chronic illnesses that can affect physical performance, such as asthma and diabetes. SEM doctors also advise on managing and preventing injuries.
Specialists in SEM diagnose and treat any medical conditions which regular exercisers or sports persons encounter. The majority of an SEM physician’s time is therefore spent treating musculoskeletal injuries, however other conditions include sports cardiology issues, unexplained under performance syndrome, exercise-induced asthma, screening for cardiac abnormalities and diabetes in sports. In addition team physicians working in elite sports often play a role in performance medicine, whereby an athletes’ physiology is monitored, and aberrations corrected, in order to achieve peak physical performance.
SEM consultants also deliver clinical physical activity interventions, negating the burden of disease directly attributable to physical inactivity and the compelling evidence for the effectiveness of exercise in the primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of disease.