Arthroscopy and Sports Medicine

Arthroscopic procedures are usually carried out either to examine or to treat a range of orthopaedic conditions. These conditions may include torn floating cartilage, torn surface cartilage, ACL reconstruction and trimming damaged cartilage. Being the best choice for joint replacement surgeries, Shalby Hospitals has appointed highly qualified and experienced team of arthroscopy surgeons in Ahmedabad, as well as in all units of the group spread across the country. Shalby Hospitals has known to possess best arthroscopic surgeons in Ahmedabad and India.

The main feature of arthroscopy is that the joint is not completely exposed as compared to the traditional open surgery; and this makes it more beneficial. Under arthroscopy, two small incisions are made to insert the arthroscope and other surgical instruments used in the knee cavity to extract the knee cap. This decreases the trauma to the connective tissue and there by increases the chances of surgical success; and also reduces the recovery time. It is specifically beneficial for professional athletes, suffering from recurrent injuries of knee joints and demand speedy recovery. The smaller incisions result in minimal scarring. The joints are inflated using irrigation fluid to make a surgical space. In this procedure, smaller surgical instruments are used as compared to the traditional instruments. Arthroscopic surgeons observe the joint area on a video monitor to diagnose the extent of injury and then repair torn joint tissue, such as ligaments and menisci or cartilage.

Arthroscopy is commonly used for joints of the knee, shoulder, elbow, wrist, ankle, foot, and hip. The surgery of the knee using an arthroscope is termed as Knee Arthroscopy Surgery.

What are Sports Injuries?

The injuries that are developed by sportsmen during major sporting events are commonly termed as Sports Injuries. Many a times, injuries also develop as a result of overuse of a certain body part while carrying out a certain activity. Runner’s knee, a painful condition associated with running and tennis elbow, a form of repetitive stress injury at the elbow due to playing tennis, are few examples of sports injuries. Injuries can also be triggered as a result of hard impact with something, causing a broken bone, torn ligament or tendon.

Injuries are a routinely suffered by athletes in professional sports. To combat such injuries, collaborations with expert Athletic Trainers and paramedics are made by teams.

In many circumstances, when teams have taken decision for a short term gain without considering the effects that the players may face in the long-term health, have given rise to several controversies.

Classification

Sports injuries are broadly classified as either traumatic or overuse injuries. Traumatic injuries are often result of the high collision nature of sports such as Football, Cricket, Tennis, Rugby, Australian rules football, Gaelic football and American football. Bruises, muscle strains and even fractures and head injuries fall into this category.

A bruise or contusion is damage to small blood vessels which causes bleeding within the tissues. A muscle strain is a small tear of muscle fibres and a ligament sprain is a small tear of ligament tissue. In the initial five day period following the traumatic incident, the body responds to these sports injuries through inflammation.

Signs and symptoms

Inflammation is characterized by pain, localized swelling, heat, redness and a loss of joint function.

Mechanism

The traumatic injuries affect the cells that make up the soft tissues. The dead and damaged cells release chemicals, which initiate an inflammatory response. If small blood vessels are damaged and opened up, they start bleeding within the tissue. As the body’s normal reaction, a small blood clot is formed in order to stop this bleeding and from this clot special cells (called fibroblasts) begin the healing process by covering scarred tissue.

The inflammatory stage is considered the first phase of healing. However, too much of an inflammatory response in the early stage can mean that the healing process would be longer and returning back to normalcy is delayed. The sports injury treatments accelerate the overall healing process by minimizing the inflammatory phase of an injury.