A fresh set of eyes is sometimes needed when an injury/condition is not responding to treatment. It may be the diagnosis is not correct or something is not quite right with the treatment. Some conditions can be treated with different methods with some patients responding better than others to a specific treatment.

 

Dr Low helps patients with non-surgical management. However as an Orthopaedic Surgical assistant for several years he is well informed about the different surgical options for various conditions and can offer appropriate advice about what is involved with specific surgical procedures. He can provide a balanced view on both the non-surgical and surgical pathways available.

 

The role of imaging in Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Conditions

Imaging can be helpful in the diagnosis of Orthopaedic and Sports conditions. However often when imaging is performed changes to structures are found that aren’t actually causing the patient any symptoms. This can be confusing to both the health professional and the patient and often the patient is misdiagnosed and receives the wrong treatment. A Sports Doctor’s role is to determine whether the image findings correlate with the patients symptoms and findings on physical examination.

 

Sometimes with imaging the same two patients may have the same amount of osteoarthritis on their x-ray, yet one patient has no pain and the other has significant pain. Researchers, scientists and doctors are yet to work out all the reasons for this phenomena, however there are well known contributors such as the patients level of stress, anxiety and perception of pain.

 

There have even been studies showing that patients with no pain, suddenly develop pain in a region of their body after having an x-ray and being told they have damage. Therefore the use of imaging should be considered carefully.