Naples Sports Medicine

If you live in Naples, Florida or you are planning on coming to Naples to receive a medical consultation regarding a sports medicine injury, this article will be of great help. During winter, a lot of people from different parts of the country come here to spend part of the season. As a result, many of these people either plan on making a consultation for certain orthopedic conditions they may present or injure themselves and end up in our practice.

Either you are local or visiting, we want to guide you in the right direction. In the orthopedic world, sports medicine is a subspecialty used to describe or classify the treatments applied to injuries resulting from athletes performances in their specific disciplines. It basically deals with prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation. It does not matter if you are an amateur or a professional, sport injuries can happen to anybody at any level and playing any type of sport: golf, football, tennis, soccer, basketball, etc.

Some of the most common sport injuries are:

Strains and sprains: Can happen even performing a minor physical activity and are the most common sports injury. Lets say you are playing soccer and to avoid another player you move the ball to the side and while doing it you step incorrectly. During these movement the ligaments of your ankle overstretch and tear. These injuries can be minor to severe depending on the case and are normally recurrent in wrists, ankles and knees.

Knee injuries: High-contact sports like football or even soccer are fertile ground for knee injuries. In fact, Dr. Leon Mead is part of a Naples football team’s ‘team’ because of it. Iliotibial band syndrome, runner’s knee (tenderness or pain near the front of the knee cap), tendonitis, damaged or bruised ligaments are among the most common injuries affecting the knee.

Fractures: Or broken bones are also very common with extreme cases like the one we saw happening to  Kevin Ware, who broke in half his leg after he tried to block a shot during a basketball game.

Dislocations: They happen when a bone in a joint gets of its alignment because of the effect caused by a external force. Hitting another player can easily dislocate joints in a finger or a hand. Shoulder dislocations are also pretty common due to its flexibility/instability condition. Do you remember the shoulder of Sargent Riggs from Lethal Weapon? Now you get the idea.

Shin splints, heat exhaustion, muscle contusions and muscle cramps are also among the list. Sport medicine injuries can happen because of an accident and there is nothing you can do about it if that is the case, but they can also happen because of poor training practices, improper equipment or flawed techniques. Therefore, as an athlete you should pay full attention to your training sessions in order to prevent these injuries.

As a patient suffering a sports medicine injury, you can chose any orthopedic doctor you feel comfortable with to asses and treat your condition. Like we said at the beginning, this article is for you to receive a guide if you are in Naples or coming to the city, need a consultation and want to find the right orthopedic doctor. Please investigate as much as you can before moving forward. If you decide you want Dr. Mead to be your doctor and/or if you want to solve any question related to the subject feel free to contact our office at 239.262.1119.

If you want to amplify the information on our sports medicine services in Naples and the specific procedures our orthopedic doctor operates on, please visit our sports medicine page.

Orthopedic Corner | Leon Mead MD Orthopedic Doctor | 730 Goodlette Road North, Suite 201  Naples Florida 34102 | Phone: (239) 262-1119