Managing Football Injuries with Shockwave Therapy

Physiotherapy in elite sport is a considerably different environment to what the majority face in other sectors. Despite what many people think about working in sport, particularly football, is no easy ride and they don’t have every resource known to medicine at their fingertips!

 


 

These medical teams are tasked with a unique set of circumstances and challenges when presented with an injury to a player - which we don’t have the time (or the word space) to unpick! But from working with several Sports Docs and Physiotherapists in Elite sport, one of the biggest challenges they face is the time pressure to get players/athletes back to full availability.

Not to mention managing the expectations of the player/athlete and coaching staff, the medical teams have to get players back fast without compromising the potential of re-injury or other secondary issues.

 

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As you may know, Physiquipe is renowned for providing industry-leading technologies from around the world to the UK market. For nearly a decade we have been working with some of the UK’s leading, sporting organisations and felt it was a great opportunity to invite a Physiotherapist from the world of Elite Sport to our webinar platform to share his experiences, particularly focusing on rehab technology and shockwave.

It is not often we get the opportunity to hear from one of the Physiotherapists working at one of the Top English football clubs and get some insight in their day-to-day life and how they select which treatments to use and invest in.

This is why we were extremely excited to have Anthony Greenhouse, Physiotherapist of newly crowned 2020/21 Premier League Champions, on our Physiquipe Webinar Platform.

Anthony has over 16 years’ experience in Elite Football and for the last 3 years has been using focused shockwave.

In football, it’s not often the medical technologies introduced stand the test of time. We have seen it happen where devices are purchased and in a matter of months end up in the corner of the physio room gathering dust. This can be down to a number of reasons, however, as Anthony goes into, the focused shockwave has been used consistently at Manchester City for the past 3 years.

One of the biggest reasons that the Piezowave2 focused shockwave is consistently being used not only because of the positive clinical outcomes, but because the players prefer it and ask for the treatment.

 

Heel treatment

 

The team upgraded from radial shockwave to focused as their radial system was simply not being used, and became one of those systems that gathered dust. There was some reluctance, naturally, to invest in “another shockwave” however, being able to use focused shockwave across a variety of indications and positive player feedback and superior clinical outcomes convinced the team to invest.

Despite this, the perception is that “It’s Man. City, they get everything” is somewhat a red-herring. The medical teams still have to do their due diligence and cannot be seen as wasting money on equipment. They have to invest wisely and ensure they get a return.

There is a huge trend in sport and private practice moving into focused shockwave, particularly in conjunction with diagnostic ultrasound, due to versatility, accuracy, tolerance and superior outcomes.

 


 

Watch the full webinar below:

 

 

 

To find out more about how you can utilise focused shockwave for sports injuries contact us, using the form below.