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Sports medicine, Euro-style

Athletes offer advice for those injured in Prague

By Brooke Edge
For The Prague Post
May 2nd, 2007 issue

Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
There are plenty of options available to injured athletes in Prague.
Sports medicine has been around in some form since the days of ancient Greece and Rome. Health care has come a long way since then. Today injured athletes have a bunch of alternatives at their fingertips, from orthopedic surgery to physical therapy.
Prague is no exception. There seems to be a plethora of clinics within the city limits dedicated to curing sports-related aches and pains.
Canadian Medical Care

Veleslavínská 1
Prague 6
235 360 133
Tel.: 603 212 320
Web: cmc.praha.cz

Na Homolce Hospital
Roentgenova 2
Prague 5
Tel.: 257 273 215
Web: www.homolka.cz/en/

For instance, Na Homolce Hospital, popular with expats for its multilingual staff, offers orthopedic services and a rehabilitation department that includes a physical-therapy unit. Others may choose to check out one of Prague’s private clinics such as Canadian Medical Care, which is primarily a family healthcare clinic but does have orthopedic and physical-therapy departments and a doctor on staff who specializes in sports medicine.
“We mainly deal with chronic problems like running injuries, back pain, tension and ligament problems, and foot and leg pain,” says Kamila Votrubova, the center’s spokeswoman.
Indeed, there appears to be no shortage of athletes in town to keep Prague’s sports medicine practitioners busy with this type of injury. From organized teams, both professional and club, to lifelong runners or people who just enjoy a pickup game in the park, foreigners in Prague may find themselves in need of medical care every now and again.
Numerous studies have found a growing need for sports medicine as baby boomers age without showing signs of slowing down. Plus, some of the most popular sports in Prague are injury-prone. Runner’s knee and tennis elbow come thanks to weary muscles, and football — both American and otherwise — can create major headaches. Literally.
In a paper promoting more efforts to prevent sport-related injuries entitled “Football Injuries and Physical Symptoms,” Drs. Jiří Dvořak and Astrid Junge state that, “football is one of the most popular sports worldwide. The frequency of football injuries is estimated to be 10 to 35 per 1,000 playing hours.”
The sports field isn’t the only place where injuries occur though.
Nick Dorrell of the Flying Honzas hockey group says that a few minor injuries have occurred during games or practice, and the course of action has just been a trip to the nearest hospital. Of course, Dorrell adds, “We play for fun and try to keep things as safe as possible, so we have been lucky so far and not had any major injuries.”
David Brauchli of the FUJ Ultimate Frisbee Team, which can be seen tossing discs every Tuesday on Letna Plain, echoes this point, adding that his group has largely escaped injury with the exception of some knee problems. When such an injury occurs, a trip to a local joint specialist follows, he says.
So once you have an injury from running too hard or playing too rough, what can you expect in Prague? Three experienced athletes weighed in on therapy from both sides of the Atlantic.
Martin Ides is a Czech native who played high school and college basketball in the U.S. and competed in the NCAA tournament with Davidson College in North Carolina in 2002. After spending the past few years on different teams across Europe, he’s returned to play basketball for his hometown of Ostrava.
“In college,” he says, “the care was great, but only after you were injured. There was nothing done to prevent the injury.”
Here doctors place more of an emphasis on athletes caring for their bodies both before and after anything might go wrong. “In Europe,” Ides explains, “usually the day after the game we’ll have a rehab session,” with time for massages and resting sore muscles in whirlpools.
Tim Lyle, an American playing basketball for the BK Sadska team, visited a team doctor to aid a hurt hamstring.
“The treatment in Europe in general is different from the U.S.,” he says. “They use more alternative treatments — lots of massages for injuries, less ice than U.S. doctors or trainers,” and “they used laser treatment for deep bruises.”
Another basketball player, Erin Olson, has sought help in Prague for an injured calf and a partially torn Achilles tendon. She plays basketball for the Sparta women’s team, and has visited two different local rehab facilities. Neither, she says, was fully English-speaking, but she’s found the doctors easy enough to communicate with.
“I find rehabilitation to be very different from that which I encountered in the United States,” she says. “The amount of functional retraining that takes place, in my experiences, has been very minimal. They tend to work to heal the problem, but not rebuild strength of functionality as quickly as you might see in the U.S.” Some treatments she has been prescribed, she says, are laser therapy and electromagnetic therapy — an alternative medicine that proponents claim treats disease by applying electromagnetic energy to the body. She had never encountered either in the United States.
“I haven’t had bad experiences here,” she says, just different ones.
So, if your springtime enthusiasm for getting back outside and active leads to an athletic mishap, don’t worry. There are plenty of varied resources in this city to get you back in action.

Brooke Edge can be reached at specialsection@praguepost.com


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