Not all pain in sports is caused by tissue damage. Should management change?

Review written by Dr Sandy Hilton info

Key Points

  1. Pain and injury have potentially different management requirements regarding return to sport.
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BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE

This article addresses the need to define pain in relation to a specific sports-related injury. The authors set out to define sports-related pain as separate from sports-related injury and to define the overlap between the definitions. There is a tendency of using “sports injury” as a description of a painful condition including when the pain exists in the absence of signs of injury (1).

This paper addresses the question of the best practices of pain management and tracking the pain in relation to an injury versus treating the pain as an independent problem.

There is a tendency of using “sports injury” as a description of a painful condition including when the pain exists in the absence of signs of injury.
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We are best equipped to help all our patients if we manage their pain through an inclusive program that addresses the physiology as well as the social and contextual implications of their injury.

WHAT IS SPORTS RELATED PAIN?

An athlete’s experience of pain is influenced by the pressure to perform, pain-related fear and worry, the athlete’s understanding of pain, and their coping strategies. Injuries dominate the clinical picture and the return to sport conversations. Because of all these

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