I recently attended the Mayo Clinics’ Sports Medicine Symposium. This was a 2 day course touching on a variety of topics. There was increased emphasis on the foot and ankle. Some of the speakers that highlighted this conference were Bryan C. Heiderscheit, P.T., Ph.D from UW-Madison, Gerard A. Malanga, M.D., the founder of New Jersey Sports Medicine, LLC and New Jersey Regenerative Institute, and Kaylan Q. Groen, A.T.R., A.T.C., a previous employee here at OSR. (By the way Kaylan says hi).
Dr. Heiderscheit presented on 2 topics, running injuries and hamstring injuries. He actually will not stretch any of his patients who suffer hamstring strains throughout their entire time with him. I thought this was very interesting. He also talked about the advantages of shortening your stride while running can have for knee pain.
Kaylan is currently working at an Athletic Trainer for Mayo and has been performing research on what running shoes people should be selecting based on their foot type and gait mechanics. So far the research had proved little on what shoe people should wear to prevent injuries. Her current recommendations are to pick a shoe that is comfortable and a shoe that is made for your running style; forefoot, midfoot, rearfoot. If you are unsure about your running style don’t be afraid to stop in and have us take a look.
Dr. Malanga talked about PRP “platelet rich plasma” injections and about his views on low back pain. Malanga is very excited about the current research coming out on PRP. He thinks that in the near future we will see that PRP will become more common. While talking about low back pain, Malanga, showed novel ideas for rehabilitation and discussed a comprehensive approach to treating the pain. Many of his talking points we are already doing at OSR!
There were many other presenters and I can say I learned a great deal from this conference.
This article was written by Andrew Ernst, ATR at our Eden Prairie location.
