The Mind Game

Injury is depressing. Arthritis is highly depressing. Most are not fatal to our lives or to our joints.

Here is our approach.

Injuries from sports and activities are unexpected. Arthritis is usually a slow onset. Both can interfere with your life, and neither is fun. How fast we shift from depressing to something else determines how big the damage becomes.

First, getting an accurate diagnosis is key. Many people try to avoid seeing the physician or skip definitive tests such as an early X-ray and MRI. Yet a clear process of taking a careful history, understanding the athlete’s past, the mechanism of the injury, and the goals for the future, augmented by objective data from testing, is indispensable to crafting the optimal recovery program. A hands-on physical exam is irreplaceable. And while yes, we do lots of “virtual” consultations, I remind people that I cannot give the best diagnosis without physically examining the patient. And every exam adds to my knowledge of injuries and possibilities. This cumulative training of my skills and curiosity about each injury, each patient, and each therapy makes the human physician excel above any robotic or AI substitute, though I take advantage of the AI augmentation of my intuitive database.

The diagnosis of the injury is one part of the interaction between the physician and the patient. The prescription for the healing plan is always customized to that individual, and most importantly, engaging the mind of the injured to see themselves as an athlete in training, not a patient in rehabilitation, determines whether or not they use their injury as an excuse to become fitter, faster, and stronger than they have been in years, or not.

The switch from depressed, injured to engaged, optimistic, and driven athlete can happen immediately or can take time. The physician sets the stage and can make the conversion instantly, but very often it is the rehabilitation team working with the patient every day that shows them the progress of healing and pushes them to get the great sweat workout, even day one after surgery, that blows off the anesthesia and surges the body with the natural testosterone, adrenaline, pheromones and endorphins necessary for people to surge ahead with optimism.

If the entire team can help patients see the journey as not just healing and recovery but optimized fitness training for life, then patients never leave; they return intermittently for a fitness and performance assessment, a sports test that no one should ever be able to pass…since we all have weaknesses somewhere that a great trainer can pick up and help improve. Patients’ goals and sports change as they age, and fortunately, our training methods keep improving, assessment tools evolving to be more personal and more accurate, and the outcomes more objective. Partnering with patients to become teammates in the sport of life makes injuries as much a mind game as a physical fitness journey, for a lifetime.

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