Sports Medicine from South Africa — SASMA biennial congress begins this week!

October 7, 2019 by Leave a comment

Dr. Pierre Viviers, President of SASMA

It’s been a while since we have invited a sports medicine colleague to a “Five Questions with CJSM” interview.

What better time to catch up with the current President of the South African Medical Association (SASMA) than on the eve of SASMA’s biennial Congress?

My dear friend Dr. Pierre Viviers of Stellenbosch University is a very busy man right now as he places the final touches on what is sure to be one of the premier events of this year’s sports medicine calendar.  Having attended SASMA in 2015  in Johannesburg, I can attest to what an exciting and stimulating event this Congress is.

True to form, Dr. Viviers did not hesitate to volunteer for this interview when I reached out to him, despite his busy schedule.  I hope you enjoy our conversation and that it whets your appetite for what is coming later this week from Cape Town.  If you can’t be there, be sure to follow #SASMA2019 on social media.

And now….Dr. Viviers!

_______________________________________________________

  1. CJSM: The biennial Congress of SASMA is taking place 10 – 13 October 2019 in Cape Town, the “Mother City.” It is a joint Congress with SASMA and BRICSCESS.  Can you tell us about what you see as the highlights of the program, and for the readers unfamiliar with BRICSCESS can you tell us about that organization?

Pierre Viviers (PV): It is a joint congress which also includes the 6th Annual Congress on Medicine and Science in Ultra-Endurance Sport which will definitely be a highlight. The pre-congress workshops are always popular and well attended. This will include 2 full-day workshops presented by ‘Exercise is Medicine South Africa” (EIM SA) and SAIDS (SA Institute for Drug-free Sport), as well as a half-day workshop by the S.A Sport-Physiotherapy group.

A highlight for me personally, is the integrated participation between scientists and medical professionals throughout the program.

Opening the narrative of social justice and the role which sport can play, especially in a country like S.A, will be one of our most influential South Africans, Prof Thuli Madonsela, activist for social justice and human rights, previous public protector and advocate in the High Court of S.A.  This is definitely a session not to be missed.

The prestigious Noble lecture will be presented by a good friend and colleague, Cheri Blauwet from Harvard Medical School & Spaulding Rehab Hospital, Boston. Cheri’s journey in injury and illness prevention in the elite Paralympic athlete will be a certain highlight. A symposium later in the conference will be another highlight, focusing on “innovations in athletes with disability.”

The sport nutrition colloquium led by Louise Burke (Australia) and other prominent South Africans in the field is another highlight.

The featured science session on player welfare in rugby union as well as the featured clinical symposium on Sport Related Concussion will reveal interesting concepts in injury prevention and management in this popular South African collision sport.

The session on mental health in athletes presented by two leaders in the field will also give new insight in prevalent mental health issues which may influence athlete welfare and performance.

The BRICES countries are Brasilia, Russia, India, China and South Africa and BRICSCESS is the Council of Exercise and Sport Science founded to specifically look into health and wellness of people within these counties. However, this is there second international congress. The council also strives to bring communication together between the BRICS countries on issues influencing health and wellness through universities and other platforms. The Council is also dedicated to leadership development in young scientists within the field.

 

  1. CJSM: You are winding down your term as President of SASMA. What are the fondest memories of your past two years of service?  Who is the incoming President?

Read more of this post

Filed under Five Questions, General Interest Tagged with

The CJSM podcast on the pediatric athlete — Guest Editor Dr. M. Alison Brooks

September 13, 2019 by

Dr. Alison Brooks, in a rare moment of repose — enjoying the sights from Table Mountain, Cape Town RSA

We have just published our September 2019 issue.  It is a special thematic issue focused on the pediatric and adolescent athlete, and we are grateful to Guest Editor Alison Brooks M.D., M.P.H. for the outstanding work she has done nurturing this issue from cradle to…..adulthood.

It’s been a long process watching this issue proceed from crawling to toddling to, now, standing on it’s own two feet marching off into the world!

Want to know more about pediatric sport specialization, concussion, nutrition, safe play?  Want to know more about the rigors and work involved with a guest editorship?  It’s time then to queue up your smart phones and listen to our newest podcast, where Dr. Brooks makes her debut as our guest.

I have known Dr. Brooks for several years and consider her a friend.  As a friend as well as a professional colleague, I am duly impressed with her career.  And you should be, too. An Assoc. Professor on the tenure track at the University of Wisconsin, she has published widely and can be found in the pages of CJSM as well as many other journals. A former member of the AMSSM’s Board of Directors, Dr. Brooks continues to influence youth athletic policy with her work for the AAP’s Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness.  And I know her best as the person I accompanied on the AMSSM’s Travelling Fellowship in South Africa in 2015.

Spend 20 minutes finding out more about the medical challenges facing our young athletes and learning a bit more about Dr. Brooks.  Go to our podcasts now at iTunes or our journal’s main web page.

Filed under CJSM Podcasts, Youth Sport Tagged with ,

Prescribed Exercise for Managing Concussions — the CJSM Blog Journal Club

September 3, 2019 by

Our Editor-in-Chief Chris Hughes (R) and Jr. Assoc. Editor Jason Zaremski (L) taking a brief spell from their busy lives.

Our fifth edition of the year went live at the beginning of September, and it’s a special one:  we have devoted the entire issue to the theme of pediatric athletes.

Our guest editor Alison Brooks M.D., M.P.H. has assembled an impressive line up of authors, including John Leddy M.D. of SUNY Buffalo who is the lead on an interesting new study demonstrating the benefits of prescribed aerobic exercise in the recovery of adolescent males from sport-related concussion.

Our Jr. Assoc. Editor Jason Zaremski M.D. has submitted another insightful journal club piece looking at the details of Dr. Leddy’s study.

As fall approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, and spring in the Southern, sports-related concussions will continue to show up in a variety of sports our young athletes play.  This work from Dr. Leddy et al. (including both this new study and his CJSM 2018 study) will be transformative in the way we manage our athletes.

Enjoy the original research paper itself (here) and the journal club article (below).

________________________________________________________________________________

Jason Zaremski M.D., Junior Associate Editor CJSM

Title:

Leddy JJ, et al. A Preliminary Study of the Effect of Early Aerobic Exercise Treatment for Sport-Related Concussion in Males. Clin J Sport Med 2019 29(5):353-360.

Introduction:  

As the temperature begins to change and we enter the fall season, millions of student-athletes have returned to school and sport. With such large participation numbers in sport inevitably comes a rise in injury. One of these injuries is sports related concussions (SRC). In recent years, our overall knowledge of how to diagnose, manage, and treat SRC has improved thanks to the ever-growing research in this area. However, one aspect that is continuing to evolve is the timing and intensity of physical activity after sustaining a SRC. While rest (cognitive and physical) has been a mainstay of treatment in the past, there is a growing body of research that indicates physical activity may accelerate recovery versus physical rest only. Thus, it is our pleasure to provide this month’s CJSM Journal Club by reviewing Leddy and colleagues’ new work on the effects of early aerobic exercise as a potential treatment for SRC in adolescent males.

Purpose/Hypothesis(es):

The primary purposes of this research is to compare early subthreshold aerobic exercise (STAE) versus prescribed rest and days to recovery from concussion for adolescent males. The authors hypothesized that STAE would reduce the days to recovery after treatment prescription. Read more of this post

Filed under Concussion in Sport, Exercise Medicine, Journal Club, Physical activity interventions, Youth Sport

The CJSM Podcast with Dr. Tamara McLeod — Pediatric & Adolescent Concussions

August 13, 2019 by

Our guest for the newest CJSM podcast is a friend and colleague I see in a variety of professional settings, and it’s always a pleasure when our paths cross.  Tamara Valovich McLeod PhD, ATC is a busy clinician and researcher at A.T. Still University in Arizona, USA, where she is J.P. Wood, D.O., Chair for Sports Medicine and Professor as well as Director of the Athletic Training Program.

Dr. McLeod is the lead author of an original research paper in our July 2019 CJSM: Patient, Injury, Assessment and Treatment Characteristics & Return-to-play Timelines After Sport-Related Concussion.

Dr. McLeod does it all — from teaching to research to racing.

In our podcast, Dr. McLeod describes how her team did a deep-dive into data from a growing practice-based research network (now encompassing 37 states in the USA) to uncover some of the finer points associated with the presentation, management and outcomes seen in pediatric and adolescent sport-related concussion.

The Athletic Training Practice Based Research Network (AT-PBRN) is centered at A.T. Still University and is a valuable resource for the profession of athletic trainers  (ATs) and sports medicine clinicians in general.  You’ll be sure to see more research coming out of this database in the coming years.

If you’re listening from outside of the USA, you may not be so familiar with ATCs and their central role to the care of athletes, most especially at the secondary school and university levels.  You’ll learn more about the profession if you listen in on the conversation I had with Dr. McLeod.

As ever, you can find this podcast episode (and all of our episodes) on both iTunes and on the CJSM main website.

Remember to subscribe to the podcasts via iTunes so you can access an episode as soon as it is released, and while you are visiting the iTunes site be sure to rate and comment on the good and the bad after listening.  We’re always seeking to improve our media at CJSM.

Filed under CJSM Podcasts, Concussion in Sport, Youth Sport Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts

%d bloggers like this: