Cheryl Martin (Host): Whether you are a seasoned athlete or just looking to stay active, sports medicine can help you get back to doing the activities you love or even help you start something new. So let's learn more about this specialty with Sports Medicine Physician, Dr. Austin Patterson. This is Memorial Health Radio with Memorial Health System Ohio.

I'm Cheryl Martin. Dr. Patterson, delighted to have you on to discuss Boosting your Health with Sports Medicine.

Austin Patterson, DO: Yeah, I appreciate you having me.

Host: First off, what is sports medicine?

Austin Patterson, DO: Sports medicine is a specialized branch of medicine that focuses on the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of acute injuries and overuse conditions really related to all types of physical activity. In most cases, we care for individuals and athletes with a multidisciplinary team. As a sports medicine physician, I'm often providing services both in a clinical setting and in the community through high school and collegiate sport coverage.

Host: So, how is sports medicine different than orthopedics, and in what ways do you work together?

Austin Patterson, DO: Primary care sports medicine differs from orthopedics in the broadest sense that orthopedics focuses on surgical treatment, whereas primary care sports medicine provides non-operative treatment and care. However, the two specialties do work very closely together. For example, a sports medicine provider like myself may provide a patient with a series of knee injections for things like knee arthritis.

However, as the arthritis progresses, they may eventually come to the point where the treatments become less effective and eventually need a knee replacement. In that case, we utilize surgical colleagues to resume the care of the patient. This working relationship between us and our effective communication allows us really to provide well coordinated and effective care for our patients.

Host: What are common injuries and conditions treated by sports medicine?

Austin Patterson, DO: Common injuries and conditions that we often treat are things like sprains, strains, chronic tendon conditions like tennis elbow, Achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, IT band syndrome, and then conditions like bursitis, osteoarthritis of the knee joint, the hip joint, concussions, and non-operative fractures.

Host: This is something I've always been curious about. When you specialize in sports medicine, does that mean that all the patients are coming as a result of sports injuries, or can it be just a regular person who's not involved in sports can come to you?

Austin Patterson, DO: Exactly. I think that's a common misconception by many because they often see the sports medicine provider in one role maybe, most often on the field with the athletes or something like that. And we do provide care for athletes in those acute injuries, but really, we provide care to everybody within the community, And it doesn't have to be related to sports. So, we encourage all types of physical activity and we treat conditions related to that.

Host: What are ways we can decrease our injury risk?

Austin Patterson, DO: Really it comes down to the basics first and foremost. And I would say the two most important things really start out with is your nutrition in your sleep. So having a well balanced diet that includes adequate caloric intake for your activity, and then making sure that it's well balanced with high protein to help you repair and recover from your activity, and then also including micronutrients through fruit and vegetables that are going to help you recover and help support your physical activity. And then sleep. It has many benefits as we know, and just really prioritizing that, can really help prevent injuries and help you continue to excel in whatever activity you like to do.

Host: And when you talk about sleep, are you talking about making sure that you get so many hours of sleep and you are consistent with that?

Austin Patterson, DO: Yes, I think, one is hours, but the other thing is the really quality of sleep. Making sure that you are kind of setting yourself up with success, so having that nighttime, bedtime routine, that morning routine, that really allows your body to say, hey, this is my time to recover. And it really sets you up for a good quality of sleep.

You can have eight hours of sleep, but be rolling around all night, but you could also have six hours of sleep and sleep great, feel great. So I think it varies based on individuals but, I think focusing on quality is the most important thing.

Host: And give me an example of what quality sleep looks like when you talk about it's not just quantity but quality.

Austin Patterson, DO: I think the simplest way to describe that is when you go to sleep, it's an uninterrupted sleep and you wake up in the morning and you feel refreshed. You feel like you have energy for the day versus, going to bed, sleeping 10 hours, but feeling groggy, foggy, those type of things. I think that's the way you can judge the quality of your sleep.

Host: Now, when you mentioned nutrition, do you suggest that a person goes to his or her primary care to kind of get a list of what's best for them nutritionally, so they know exactly what they should be eating and how much?

Austin Patterson, DO: That's a great start. Another option is they have online calculators that will actually allow you to put in how active you are, your weight, your height, and then your goals, whether it's to lose weight, gain weight, maintain your weight, and that will give you an approximated range of the amount of calories that you should target to hit in order to meet your goal. I think there's a lot of information online in regards to the different types of foods that you should be eating, but I think keep it simple is the best way to do it, meaning focus on getting a fruit and vegetable with just about every meal and then a high quality protein source, whether it's if you eat meat, a lean chicken or a lean steak, or if you're a vegetarian, focusing on high protein foods like tofu, beans, soy milk, those type of things.

Host: Dr. Patterson, how are sport and overuse injuries or conditions diagnosed?

Austin Patterson, DO: Conditions are diagnosed through a thorough history and exam first. I often perform a comprehensive physical exam in my office that not only looks at the area of the patient's pain, but also evaluates their whole kinetic chain to look for any deficits or weaknesses. Really focusing on that may have led or predisposed the individual to the injury.

We also utilize imaging, such as x-ray, MRI, CT scans. But a unique thing about sports medicine is that we receive training in ultrasound, which is often performed during the time of the exam to evaluate and identify things like tendon or ligament tears. This helps me better guide my treatment and helps the patient better understand their underlying condition too.

Host: Talk about the ways that sports medicine can help a person get back to doing the activities that you love or help you to start.

Austin Patterson, DO: I was drawn to sports medicine because of my love for movement and, and being active and just because I know how much joy that brings to my life. And so my main goal as a sports medicine provider is to get patients back to the activities they love to do. Really we can do this through many different things, with the simplest being, just an individualized exercise program or rehabilitation prescription.

Other things that we can offer are ultrasound guided injections, whether that be corticosteroid or PRP, and then procedures like needle tenotomy, otherwise known as Tenex. These are all things that we can do to help heal the underlying condition and alleviate some of the patient's pain so that they can return.

As patient's acute injuries and chronic pain is addressed, we often spend time to treat the whole body so that I can help prevent recurrent or future injuries once the patient returns to their desired activities.

Host: And do you find that patients can recover faster by following this particular module when they come to you and you give them specifics?

Austin Patterson, DO: Yeah, I think, what patients I really like to see is that oftentimes it's hard for them to get an exact answer of where the pain's coming from. And then, once they do get an answer, sometimes they get a cookie cutter plan to get back to their goals.

But really, what we focus on in the office once we have our diagnosis is spending time talking about an individualized treatment plan, getting their feedback, and doing frequent follow ups so that we do make sure that they are able to return to their activity.

Host: Who else is part of your sports medicine team?

Austin Patterson, DO: Our sports medicine team is large, and it's multidisciplinary. So, it first starts with the providers like myself as a non-operative primary care sports medicine physician, but also we have specialized sports medicine orthopedic colleagues who we work closely with on the sidelines, to help care for our patients.

And we often spend time together on the sidelines so that we're better able to coordinate our care between the two specialties and then also helps us really establish relationships within our community. In addition, we have our clinical staff personnel, who really provide some of our first impressions to our patients as they coordinate appointments, schedule diagnostic imaging, and room the patients. They often also assist in our office-based procedures, such as our injections.

 In addition, we also have I would say our backbone of our sports medicine team, which are our athletic trainers who are actually at our high schools on a daily basis working with our athletes and often consider the first responders in the sports medicine world as they're often seeing these injuries acutely, kind of coming up with a triage system, whether they need to see us or they can do rehab on their own. And then they really help coordinate the rehab to get them back to sport.

Host: Dr. Austin Patterson, thank you so much for your time and for educating us on what sports medicine offers. Thank you.

Austin Patterson, DO: Yeah. Thank you.

Host: Well, that wraps up this episode of Memorial Health Radio with Memorial Health System. Head on over to our website at mhsystem.org/sportsmedicine for more information and to get connected with one of our providers.

Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and all other Memorial Health System podcasts. Thanks for listening to Memorial Health Radio.