ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the role and personnel responsible for the comprehensive care of injured athletes and the biomechanics of the knee, spine, and shoulder. Careful development of the actual components of the pre-participation physical with the entire sports medicine team is necessary since many specialists and types of clinicians are needed to ensure that the most thorough evaluation is made. The diversity of health professionals involved in injury management allows the athlete to recover not only physically, but also emotionally and socially. The chapter explains the role of resistive exercise in injury prevention and the stages of injury recovery and characteristics of inflammation in the human body. In successfully treating athletic injuries in a rehabilitation setting, the health professional needs to understand the mechanism and type of injury which has occurred. After an acute musculoskeletal injury, there are three phases of tissue healing: inflammation, proliferation/repair, and maturation/remodeling.
