Sports injuries are inevitable when indulging in physically demanding or contact sports. So much so that there is an altogether separate branch of medicine dedicated to the treatment of sports injuries and is called sports medicine. While minor wounds can heal in a few days or weeks, major ones may require surgical attention. However, just like any other surgery, surgical treatment of sports injuries may be expensive in the United States and other Western countries. But thanks to medical tourism, now these treatments can be obtained for cheap.
Injuries are an inevitable part of playing any sport, be it tennis, squash, football, baseball, hockey, cycling, golf or any other. Just like defeats don't stop an athlete from moving on, physical injuries should not prevent you from playing sports because there almost always is a way to treat the injury and even major injuries can now be treated affordably through medical tourism.
TYPES OF INJURIES
Sports injuries may range from bruises and muscle strains, to fractures and head injuries. The most common sports injuries are:
Ligament sprains and muscle strains
Swollen muscles
Knee injuries (torn meniscus, runner's knee or patellofemoral pain syndrome, jumper's knee, articular surface problems, problems with the kneecap)
Knee ligament injuries (torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), torn posterior cruciate ligament (PCL), torn medial collateral ligament (MCL))
Shoulder injuries (rotator cuff tears, glenoid labrum tear)
Tendon injuries (Achilles tendon injuries, DeQuervain's syndrome or washerwoman's sprain or mother's wrist)
Pain along the shin bone (shin splints)
Bone fractures (scaphoid fracture, hip fracture)
Dislocations (shoulders, fingers, knees, wrists, elbows)
Spine injuries (herniated disk, sciatica, lumbar spinal stenosis)
TREATMENT OPTIONS
To accelerate the overall healing process it's important that the initial phase (inflammatory phase) of the injury be minimized with the initial treatments. Treatment often begins with the RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation) regime to relieve pain, reduce swelling and speed healing. Other possible treatments include pain relievers, keeping the injured area from moving, rehabilitation and sometimes surgery.
SURGICAL TREATMENT OF INJURIES
Surgery is recommended when the more conservative methods of healing and physical therapy have failed to relieve pain and restore normal function. Based on the site and extent of injury and evaluation by your doctor, the surgical approach used could be traditional or laparoscopic (keyhole).
The most common surgeries to treat sports-related injuries are:
Knee replacement (total or partial)
ACL repair or reconstruction
Meniscectomy
Arthroscopic surgery (knee arthroscopy, shoulder arthroscopy, spinal arthroscopy, wrist arthroscopy, ankle arthroscopy, hip arthroscopy)
Tendon repair surgery
Laminectomy or laminotomy
Discectomy or microdiscectomy
Bone fracture repair surgery
Hip replacement
Hip hemiarthroplasty
Birmingham hip resurfacing
Spinal decompression surgery
MEDICAL TOURISM AND SURGERY
If you are insured, your insurance may cover the cost of surgery. But if you have to pay for the surgery out of pocket it may cost you a fortune to have the surgery in the US. Therefore, Americans are increasingly shopping for surgical care in other countries - medical tourism - where the cost of surgery is much less while at the same time the quality offered is superior to what is available in the US.
When William Nilsson, an uninsured American, sustained knee injuries while playing football and tore his knee ligaments while playing golf, he resorted to an Indian hospital to get a total knee replacement surgery so he could return to his sports hobbies. Assisted by Healthbase, a medical tourism facilitator based in Boston, he managed to have his surgery for $6,500. The same surgery in the US would have cost him between $30,000 and $40,000.
Similarly, Daniel Biggs broke a tendon in his hand when playing golf. He had his tendon repair surgery coordinated by Healthbase in Panama for which he paid $5,500 - a price that was a mere 20% of what he was quoted in the United States.
These are just two examples of the hundreds and thousands of people traveling overseas to seek affordable health care for sports-related injuries as well as non-sports related conditions. Countries such as Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica and India are popular medical tourism destinations for such treatments.
Price differential is the leading factor for the popularity of medical tourism. Other benefits of using medical tourism are access to high quality and immediate care. You may find more information about affordable medical tourism on the Healthbase website.
The author works for Healthbase (www.healthbase.com), a medical tourism facilitator that connects patients to high quality surgical and non-surgical healthcare and dental care abroad for a fraction of cost in the US, Canada and UK.
Tags: Affordable Health Care, Baseball, Costa Rica, Football, healthbase, healthcare, India, Medical Tourism, Medical Tourism Facilitator, Mexico, Panama, Sports Injury, Sports Medicine, Squash, Surgery, Surgery Overseas, Tennis, treatment, United States
While President Obama recently lifted the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research imposed by President Bush eight years ago, some people continue to oppose this move and call it unethical. So, while the scientific community is thrilled by the news and says the research will lead to medical breakthroughs, some communities consider the research as a "slippery slope". But, what exactly are stem cells and why are they so important as to generate hot debates among all sorts of circles - political, social, religious, and what not? Here's a look at some of those details.
The science behind stem cells
What sets stem cells apart from other cells is their ability to turn into any other type of tissue in the body. A stem cell from the bone marrow, for example, can be transformed into a neuron or nerve cell in the brain.
Types of stem cells: Embryonic stem cells versus Adult stem cells
Broadly, there are two types of stem cells in humans - embryonic stem cells and non-embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells (ESC), as the name suggests, are isolated from the inner cell mass of an early stage embryo (4-5 days post fertilization, and consisting of 50-150 cells). On the other hand, non-embryonic stem cells which are also known as adult stem cells are found in adult tissues.
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent as opposed to adult stem cells that are multipotent. What this means is that embryonic stem cells can differentiate into any of the more than 220 cell types in the adult body (to be able to give rise to any mature cell type) while adult stem cells can only form a limited number of cell types (closely related family of cells).
Utility of stem cells
The importance of stem cell lies in the fact that they can be converted into any type of other cells or tissues in the body – neurons, pancreatic tissue, heart muscle cells, etc.
So, for example, stem cells harvested from your bone marrow can possibly be used to repair the damage in your heart muscle caused during a heart attack, or to correct blood disorders such as sickle cell anemia (anaemia) through transfusions of stem cells.
Stem cell therapy is believed to have the potential to dramatically change the treatment of human disease. Embryonic stem (ES) cell therapies have been proposed for regenerative medicine and tissue replacement after injury or disease.
But, it should be noted at this point that embryonic stem cell therapies are not in use yet. They are still only in the stage where medical researchers are testing them on animals.
On the other hand, adult stem cells have been successfully used to treat leukemia (leukaemia) and related bone/blood cancers utilizing bone marrow transplants.
The controversy
The controversy behind stem cell research pertains only to human embryonic stem cell research and not all stem cell research. What is controversial is the fact that the source of the research material, human embryos, is destroyed in the process of harvesting the stem cells. Pro-life activists oppose the research arguing that a human embryo is a human life that is entitled to protection.
Another area of controversy is that embryonic stem cell technologies are a slippery slope that may lead to reproductive cloning which may devalue human life.
The production of adult stem cells, on the other hand, does not require the destruction of an embryo and therefore, adult stem cell research and therapy are not as controversial. Though, adult stem cell treatment does carry a risk of rejection by the body’s immune system.
The present state of stem cell research
There are some countries that offer treatments using stem cells (read about medical tourism) but in such therapies only adult stem cells derived from the patient's body are used (autograft). When possible, autografts are preferred as they remove the risk of rejection by the recipient’s body.
There is promising research ongoing in the field of stem cells to derive treatments for a wider variety of diseases including cancer, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), multiple sclerosis, lung disease, arthritis, organ failure, and muscle damage, amongst a number of other impairments and conditions.
The future
The ultimate question on the minds of many is – "Why can't we simply use adult stem cells instead of harvesting embryonic stem cells?"
Theoretically, embryonic stem cells are considered better because they work as a biological blank slate and are the most versatile of all stem cells whereas adult stem cells are sort of semi-specialized cells and are not as versatile as ESCs.
Though the field of adult stem cells is not marred by controversies, the problem with adult stem cells is also that they are often present only in minute quantities, are difficult to isolate and purify, and their numbers may decrease with age, according to a primer by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
At this juncture, much remains unknown about the potential of embryonic stem cells. But, going by the success in the field of animal testing it may very well turn out that embryonic stem cells could provide solutions to many diseases in humans.
The answer to the potential benefits of ESC lies in research. To understand the benefits of embryonic stem cells or any type of stem cells for that matter, and to discover possible treatments in humans, various lines of research need to be pursued simultaneously.
Only research can prove if adult stem cells are better over embryonic stems cells for curing human diseases or vice versa. It may also emerge that adult stem cells offer good treatments for certain ailments, while embryonic stem cells are better for curing others.
About the author: The author works for Healthbase (www.healthbase.com), a medical tourism facilitator that connects patients to high quality healthcare in USA and abroad for a fraction of the typical cost of care in US, Canada and UK.
Tags: ban, bone marrow, bush, controversy, debate, embryonic stem cell research, embryonic stem cells research, federal funding, healthbase, Medical Tourism, nerve, neuron, obama, president, president bush, president obama, slippery slope, stem cells, unethical
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