Sports Medicine and to be able to return to the court as safely and quickly as possible from any injuries. It’s our job to help them do that.” One of the major differences in working with the NBA team is the expediency with which the evaluations take place, notes David R. McAllister, MD, professor of orthopaedic surgery and chief of the sports- medicine program, and head team physician for the Lakers. “Because these are multimillion- dollar professional athletes, everything is very time-sensitive,” Dr. McAllister explains. As part of his role, he attends every Lakers home game; if a player potentially has an injury, Dr. McAllister conducts an immediate medical evaluation, ordering X-rays or an MRI so that within hours he has all of the information needed for a firm diagnosis and determination of what treatment, if any, is needed. “So much is riding on these players’ health,” Dr. McAllister says. “They can’t work without being healthy, or without knowing.” Another major difference is the intensity of the rehabilitation from an injury or after surgery. “Unlike most of us, for these players their number-one responsibility is getting better, and they have no other job to go to,” Dr. McAllister says. “So they spend many hours doing rehab, with their own physical therapist and a team of athletic trainers who will respond immediately to our instructions.” injuries like hamstring or quad strains and ankle sprains,” Dr. Jones says. “And by looking at abnormal biomechanics in high-level athletes, we can translate the same principles to our recreational athletes, who may be at even higher risk for these types of injuries.” The relationship with the Lakers also has reinforced lessons about nutrition — such as the importance of sufficient vitamin D and calcium for preventing joint injuries — that Dr. Jones applies in his everyday practice. “With elite athletes, we learn about the effects of intensive training, and we can then translate that to our weekend warriors,” says Sharon Hame, MD, professor of orthopaedic surgery, who works with professional athletes with hip-related ailments. “We learn about overuse injuries, and we can take the protocols that they use to train effectively and adjust them to an appropriate level for the casual-athlete level.” “With recreational athletes, you can often modify their activities to avoid reinjury. But for people who rely on their musculoskeletal health for their livelihood, that’s not an option.” Seeing the positive impact of the intensive rehabilitation efforts practiced by elite athletes also underscores the importance of assisting the general patient population in accessing tools that can help them be successful. “As orthopaedists and sports medicine physicians, we’re lucky in that most of our patients are highly motivated to return to exercising,” Dr. Hame says. “For our weekend warriors, we need to push to make sure they are getting the support that they need.” Kristofer Jones, MD, assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery and assistant team physician for the Lakers, points out that rehabilitating professional athletes from injuries carries special challenges. “With recreational athletes, you can often modify their activities to avoid injury. But for people who rely on their musculoskeletal health for their livelihood, that’s not an option,” he says. Working with elite athletes also is instructive on issues of biomechanics, Dr. Jones adds. The Lakers have begun using wireless GPS systems to monitor players during workouts. “By tracking players over time and analyzing what kind of load they are putting on their bodies, we can identify when chronic fatigue issues may come into play, because the fatigue manifests in poor biomechanics. That puts the athlete at risk for Photo: SuperStock 1 1 UCLA Physicians Update