Future aspects of sports medicine

Abstract

Sports medicine is a medical field concerned with physical fitness, treatment, and prevention of injures related to sports and exercise. The sports medicine physicians are constantly looking for treatment options that can successfully treat these injuries while minimizing time away from the sport and preventing return. The most common sports injuries in treatment studies include fractures, concussion, patellar tendonitis, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears, knee cartilage injures, meniscal tears, shoulder separation, nerve compression injuries, posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) injuries, shoulder dislocation, sprains and strains, tennis elbow - lateral epicondylitis and tendonitis and more. In literature, there are many studies on various approaches (surgical and non-surgical) used in the treatment of the mentioned injuries. However, the validity of traditional methods is decreasing day by day, new generation and futuristic solutions are needed more. It is quite clear that innovative approaches (such as nanomedicine, smart-materials with personalized pharmaceutical and nutritional technologies etc.) should be preferred to overcome this deprivation. In this chapter, future aspects of sports medicine and their applications will be discussed.