Nov 2, 2017A Healing Hand
For athletic trainers, keeping athletes healthy and/or getting athletes back to their sport after an injury is the name of the game. Here are some products that can assist with injury prevention and speed the recovery process.
This article first appeared in the November 2017 issue of Training & Conditioning.
MEASURE MUSCLE HEALTH WITH ULTRASOUND
MuscleSound helps every athlete reach optimal readiness with data driven, dependable evidence. Collect immediate, actionable information on muscle fuel and body composition using this medical grade ultrasound device. This will give you consistent results you can rely on, which will benefit players, teams, and bottom lines.
“MuscleSound is all about readiness and recovery, and it lets you assess the athlete in real time,” says Mike Valentino, MuscleSound’s Vice President of Sales. “A scan can take under two minutes, from the start of the scanning process to uploading the results and getting actionable data right in front of you. This allows you to quickly measure estimated muscle fuel level, muscle energy status, and muscle fuel symmetry, which are all essential to athlete performance and recovery.”
With MuscleSound, you can acquire information tailored to the unique needs of each athlete. The device’s pinpoint focus allows you to zoom in on specific time points and create instant data snapshots of the team and individual athletes. By tracking this data over time, you will be able to identify and analyze trends and changes pre-, during, and post-season.
“Each athlete processes fuel differently — I call this a fitness fingerprint,” says Valentino. “The ultrasound scans allow you to address these differences and take a personalized approach to each athlete.”
When an athlete is injured, MuscleSound helps monitor their rehabilitation progress, taking some of the guesswork out of treatment. You can also use the device to get a head’s up on your athlete’s diet and the impact of nutritional habits on fuel status. With these immediate assessments, you can share results and help your athletes achieve their goals.
A single MuscleSound scan session can alter an athlete’s training session for that day. It can show them where they are in terms of reaching their goals, and whether or not they need to modify their approach. As a coach or athletic trainer, MuscleSound assessments enable you to build a more personalized program for each athlete. They can also help to determine exercise and lifestyle habits that optimize overall MuscleHealth and performance in training and during competition.
www.musclesound.com
For more info text T8127 to 607-882-1273
RECOVER FASTER. RECOVER STRONGER.
When athletes are sidelined by injury, getting them back into the game as quickly and safely as possible is of utmost importance. sam® Sport can help make this happen, as it decreases recovery time while reducing pain and increasing muscle performance.
“sam® Sport is the only FDA-cleared, wearable-active ultrasound for multi-hour treatment to accelerate healing of musculoskeletal injuries on the market,” says Chief Commercial Officer James Molinaro. “Athletes can wear the device while working out or even traveling. Used in conjunction with physical therapy, healing and recovery occurs in days or weeks instead of months.”
sam® Sport is worn for four hours per day, and provides ten times the amount of energy supplied by a traditional ultrasound treatment. These ultrasonic waves increase stimulation of collagen lay-down, accelerate development of new blood vessels, increase multi-hour blood-flow, and increase oxygenated hemoglobin in the muscle by a factor of five in just 30 minutes. Each of these components accelerates the natural healing of muscle, tendon, or ligament injuries.
If an injury calls for surgery, sam® Sport can aid in healing, reducing pain, and decreasing inflammation during post-op recovery. To help prevent injuries, athletes can wear the device during warm-up or cool-down activities, loosening muscles that feel tight. Clinical studies also show that when used after a workout, practice, or game, sam® Sport accelerates lactic acid depletion while increasing muscle strength and torque. Used by professionals in the MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, MLS, WNBA, NWSL, and by college teams across the United States, sam® Sport is tested and proven to deliver sustained action for faster recovery.
“Another key element is that sam® Sport is covered by insurance for injured professional and college athletes,” says Molinaro. “Insurance companies recognize sam® Sport as an effective tool for injury rehabilitation and prevention.”
www.samsport.com
For more info text T8108 to 607-882-1273
FOUR OPTIONS IN ONE
A new orthopedic rehabilitation device is providing athletic trainers with a multi-modality, dual-user option for helping patients recover post-injury or post-surgery. Recently cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Med4 EliteTM by Game Ready® provides athletic trainers with four options in one: iceless cold therapy, heat therapy, rapid contrast (alternating heat and cold) therapy, and intermittent pneumatic compression therapy. The device is compatible with most of Game Ready’s existing line of dual-action wraps featuring NASA technology.
Current methods of rapid contrast therapy require multiple cumbersome devices and a large amount of space.
The Med4 Elite provides a greatly improved application of therapies due to its compact but powerful footprint. Iceless cold capabilities allow for deep-penetrating cold down to 38 degrees Fahrenheit, while controllable heat can go up to 113 degrees Fahrenheit, and the device’s rapid contrast therapy provides a changeover rate of less than one minute. In addition, four levels of intermittent pneumatic compression help conform the wraps to the body for better surface contact and more effective cold/heat/ contrast therapy.
The Med4 Elite is controlled by an intuitive touchscreen computer interface, allowing athletic trainers to easily alternate between and combine therapies, as well as control, adjust, and monitor treatment times, temperature ranges, and compression settings with their fingertips. The unit enables the simultaneous treatment of one or two patients or multiple injuries, all with targeted efficiency. The Med4 Elite provides athletic trainers with a new option for diverse injuries, post- surgery recovery, and different stages of rehabilitation.
www.gameready.com
For more info text T8100 to 607-882-1273
Sidebar:
BRINGING LASER ON BOARD
About a year ago, APEX Physio in Bermuda decided to investigate the benefits of photobiomodulation (PBM) therapy to determine if we should add a therapy laser to our clinic. We did a lot of research about PBM therapy and discovered it could help us add value and promote a better environment for healing — thus adding and improving on our current treatment methods. Also through our research, we determined that a Class IV device had the most compelling evidence.
We decided that to accomplish our goal of maintaining best practice and enhancing the APEX experience, a Class IV laser had to become part of our clinician toolkit. Our staff quickly took to the technology as they began to see immediate positive results, with many patients reporting reduction in pain after just one treatment.
Now, all the therapists on our team have been trained to use the therapy laser. Once patients are assessed, laser is prescribed and, depending on their condition, the number of sessions ranges from four to 10. As we see more and more results with our patients, the laser has only become more prominent in our delivery of patient-centered care.
One particular group of our clients who have seen fantastic results has been the Artemis Racing team. These athletes compete in the America’s Cup, which is a Formula 1-type sailing event for the fastest wind-powered boats on the planet. Our experience with adding laser therapy to treatments for Artemis Racing athletes has been very positive. The use of the therapy laser has enabled us to add an additional component to our traditional treatments, returning them to activity faster than we imagined possible.
For example, Australian helmsman and Olympic gold medalist Nathan Outteridge had a severe ankle sprain that threatened to keep him out of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series event and the 2016 Rio Olympics. We added Class IV laser therapy to Outteridge’s treatment program. Within six days of the injury, he was able to compete in the America’s Cup World Series event and went on to win a silver medal in Rio.
“Once I suffered my ankle injury, I was worried I would miss the [America’s Cup] World Series racing and a large chunk of the Rio Olympic build-up campaign,” said Outteridge. “The use of the therapy laser treatment really aided my recovery, enabling me not to miss a single event as a result of this potentially serious injury.”
www.litecure.com
For more info text T8103 to 607-882-1273
