Clinical Resource: Sports Related Injuries for the Foot and Ankle

So sports related injuries of the foot and ankle  really goes everything from the elite level college, high school athlete to the weekend  warrior who just wants to play soccer on the weekend with his kids. Um there’s a whole plethora  of things that come up whether this is a simple ankle sprain or something that requires a little  bit more work and discussion like an achilles tendon rupture. So sports related injuries of the foot and ankle more often than not can be treated with a good course of physical therapy and time  and rest and recovery but you got to know what the appropriate physical therapy protocol is and  when to advance them and I think we do a really

good job of that here especially with our group of physical therapists. Achilles injury typically occur when someone has their foot brought up  into rapid dorsiflexion or toes toward their head and so it puts an excessive tension on the  achilles and it eventually will fail. This is a really common injury that we see and we see it in  all walks of life. It can happen in a high school football game or it can happen with someone just  stepping off the curb wrong. The good thing is is a lot of these can be treated non-operatively or  operatively. There are risks and benefits to both. We tend to side more on the operative side because  you have a little bit more planter flection strength and you have a decreased risk of rupture but non-operative is still reasonable so that’s a pretty good place to have a discussion with  your doctor about what’s right for you.