Sports and Exercise Medicine/ Pain Medicine

The department is a wide-ranging discipline incorporating aspects of disease and injury prevention, the management of the medical problems of exercising individuals, the management of soft tissue injuries sustained with exercise, and the prescription of exercise for both improving physical fitness and treating disease. It also looks at the discrete exercise needs of certain population groups such as the elderly, those with disabilities, and children.

It provides expertise in the medical needs of sporting individuals, sporting teams, and sporting events. It covers aspects of the medical care of individuals exercising in extreme environments and deals with pharmacological and ethical issues involved in drugs and doping in sports.

Research in Sports and Exercise Medicine (SEM) is particularly concerned with injury prevention, enhancing physical function, understanding and improving impairment, and enhancing the rehabilitation of injuries.

Sports physicians possess expertise in general medicine, orthopedics, and rehabilitation plus allied sports sciences including nutrition, biomechanics, exercise physiology, and sports psychology.

Sports and exercise medicine deals with

1. Management of the medical problems of exercising individuals at all ages and all levels of participation.
2. The pathophysiology, biomechanics, and optimization of human performance.
3. The use of exercise as a therapeutic modality in the treatment and prevention of disease.
4. The promotion of health and the prevention of disease or injury at a population level.

The specialty of Pain Medicine, or Algiatry, is a discipline within the field of medicine that is concerned with the prevention of pain, and the evaluation, treatment, and rehabilitation of persons in pain. Some conditions may have pain and associated symptoms arising from a discrete cause, such as postoperative pain or pain associated with a malignancy, or may be conditions in which pain constitutes the primary problem, such as neuropathic pains or headaches.