In sports medicine, Botulinum Toxin type A (BoNT-A) can sometimes be used as an alternative for some of the most common pathologies of the musculoskeletal system. The objective of this narrative review is to identify the main current indications for BoNT-A in common sports pathologies, the technical conditions for its use, the doses used, and the main beneficial or adverse effects expected, in order to allow a practical approach for the clinician.
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The shoulder is a particularly vulnerable joint in sports, and especially so in children and adolescents. The normal hypermobility during growth needs to be differentiated from pathological instability. Overuse injury has to be avoided or treated. Some injuries are specific for childhood and adolescence and need to be treated with a specific and age appropriate approach.
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There is a strong belief among the general population that sport has positive effects. However, only some preventive effects of sport meet these high expectations. Numerous studies have specifically shown that sport does not protect people from the consumption of legal and illegal drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. For this reason, the umbrella organisation of Swiss sports associations (Swiss Olympic), the Federal Office of Sport (FOSPO) and the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) teamed up as early as 2003 and launched the “cool and clean” prevention programme.
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A lot has been published on the topic concussion in sports during the last years, conscience was sharpened, much was structured and defined more precisely, help tools were developed and rules changed. This article summarizes the fifth edition of the recently published guidelines of the “International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport”. In addition, new findings regarding gender differences and recovery will be presented, as well as the modified “return-to-sport” and the novel “return-to-school” protocols.
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Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have the highest intake of all medication in elite and non-elite athletes. The high consumption by athletes (30–50%) participating in team and single-sports leads to the assumption that not only injuries are being treated, but that masking symptoms of minor complaints or post-exercise fatigue might be the primary indication for their intake, without considering their potential harmful side-effects on general health but also on training adaptive processes.
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As demonstrated for most of solid tumors, recent clinical studies clearly suggested that physical activity could play a key role in the management of patients with hematological malignancies, as a non-drug therapy. Physical activity interventions contribute to improve the quality of life of patients, mainly by reducing cancer-related fatigue (P<0.005), enhancing physical functioning (P<0.001), reducing the prevalence of depression including minor and major depressive episodes (P<0.05). However, if physical activity appears to be beneficial for patients with hematological malignancies, research is required to determine the benefits of different physical activities (i.e. type of exercise, intensity, frequency), and decipher the appropriate timing of intervention initiation.
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Long term storage of the anti-doping samples and their reanalyses becomes today more and more a trend in the anti-doping community. The procedure has been implemented by the anti-doping authorities for the samples of the Tour de France and for the Olympic Games since Athens 2004 and has been always presented as a good tool to deter doping habits in top level sport.
Recently, the World Anti-Doping Code introduced the possibility for anti-doping organizations to store the athletes’ samples up to ten years.
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Arthroplasty is a common procedure in orthopedic surgery to address severe osteoarthritis (OA) in the hip joint. With the burgeoning “baby boomer” generation and older athletes who wish to return to competitive levels of sports, understanding how sporting activity affects arthroplasty outcomes is becoming exceptionally important.
The demand for total joint arthroplasty is projected to increase in the first three decades of the twenty-first century. Patients who have had a hip or knee replacement are more and more expecting to participate in athletics after rehabilitation.
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Adolescence is triggered by puberty and corresponds to a time of great changes in many fields including biological, psychological, cognitive and social. Participation to a sport activity improves self-esteem, socialisation with peers and physical condition. Yet, it sometimes is associated with suffering, restrictive behaviours and eating disorders when performed at an intensive level. Intensive sport activity during adolescence should take into account young people’s developmental stages as well as their fundamental needs in order to promote a harmonious training. One way to promote such training is to train parents and medical health providers to recognise these specific developmental needs and take them into account.
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Objectives: Growing interest in physical activity has led to the development of a number of organizations, networks and associations, including grass-root, professional and academic institutions. To maximize relevance and effectiveness of work undertaken in this field, we aimed at developing a systematic overview of institutions active in health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA).
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