Projects / Programmes
Development of sport injury model for effective prevention, diagnostic, and rehabilitation
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 5.10.02 |
Social sciences |
Sport |
Kinesiology - medical aspect (orthopedy, physiatry etc.) |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| B580 |
Biomedical sciences |
Skeleton, muscle system, rheumatology locomotion |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 3.03 |
Medical and Health Sciences |
Health sciences |
Athlete, Information system, Injury, Prevention, Safe return
Researchers (15)
Organisations (3)
Abstract
Injuries regularly accompany sports on all levels and to a great extent determine the successes or sports career and life of active athletes. Epidemiological data and data on the success rate of rehabilitation or return to sport are extremely difficult to compare, mostly due to non-harmonisation of definitions. However, we can conclude with great certainty that the incidence of sport injuries is increases and that some sports are more exposed to injuries (football, hockey, gymnastics) than others. Not only the results of athletes and their teams are connected to sport injuries, but also their long-term health, quality of life, socio-economic status and consequently, the general financial burden on the society.
With collaboration with Slovenian Olympic Committee, we will develop a standardised information system for registering readiness of athletes and their sport injuries. During the project period, we will do so for 5 sports (football, basketball, handball, skiing, and gymnastics). Furthermore, we will design a methodology for assessment of sport injuries for the purpose of out aims. However, the information system will be available also to scientists and expert from different fields (epidemiologists, doctors, kinesiologists, dietitians etc.) for safe and ethically acceptable access to data with the goals to discovering new knowledge, risk factors, international comparability and transfer of best practices.
Our main aims are related to safe return to sport after injury and construction of a test battery for preventive assessment of athletes. In the framework of our first aim, we will firstly perform a validation of newly developed diagnostic methods for detection of muscle tone, contractile parameters, ratio between mechanical outputs normalised to electrical muscle activity – a measure of electromechanical efficiency and ultrasonographic measurement of fibrilar structures and amorphous matrix inside the tendon. After piloting with this tool we obtained promising results after ACL reconstruction and hip replacement, where method gives additional information to standard clinical imaging tools. However, we need to see a value of this information. Therefore, we will construct an experimental 2-year study of safe return focusing on hamstring injuries.
In the second aim we will design and validate sport specific battery of test for sport injury prevention. Even though, the validation will have to be much longer than the duration of project we will assure a good initial test selection and 2 years of validation. The selection of tests will be formed on the grounds of scientific literature review, later on with an international Delphi analysis that will include athletes, coaches, experts, scientists and Expert Centre of Slovenian Olympic Committee. We will also integrate results from our information system, designed in first 9 months of the project. Furthermore, we will adjust the prevention test battery to be used in young athletes and start collecting data in communities of Koper and Izola.
We believe that all aims are long-term and achievable to some significant extent within this project. With the help of Slovenian Olympic committee we believe a new era of systematic work in Slovenian sport, where it is very important to assure to small basin of Slovenian athletes an excellent sport support in the field of their health for even better performance. We also believe that our solutions will launch new hypotheses, projects, and also solutions.
Significance for science
Researchers from Institute of Kinesiology Research UP SRC, and partners, are for many years involved in research in the fields of sports medicine, sports rehabilitation, diet and exercise.Main part of their research is focused on the physiology of skeletal muscle, by studying it in different environments (microgravity, different temperature and altitude environments, during and after exercise and/or rehabilitation). In last five years, all project partners were published 37 SCI articles in total from all aforementioned fields. Every one of our partners including us, are involved in the international research team, representing the world’s top research in exercise physiology and monitoring injuries in football. Also, in the proposed project we will cooperate with domestic and foreign partners to attain the objectives of the proposed research, which will bring a visibility of research achievements.
The proposed research will attempt to answer some fundamental science questions, as well as applicative ones. Greater focus will be on the applicability where we aim to develop European Information System, which will allow the integration of a number of researchers to analyze data obtained and perform the analysis for the benefit of sport. The new findings will certainly be important for decision makers in the field of sport as well as others – e.g. decorators. In particular, it is pointed out, that we will focus more but, not completely on a new method, which was developed in Slovenia during the ARRS project (2012-2016) which was also significantly upgraded and validated. Today, the latter leaves new research challenges and opportunities of which testifies the document from the council of FC Barcelona doctors, where their leader writes (»We use the Tensiomyography (TMG) in the medical department of FC Barcelona for about three years now and we believe that this technique is very useful in the evaluation of the mechanical properties of the muscles during training. We use TMG in the recovery process of muscle injuries where it helps us to make right decisions on the performance improvement in the regeneration process after muscle injury. These measurements taken during the healing process of muscle injuries help us to bring injured muscles in the normal state as fast as possible. «), who is also an excellent scientist, with 51 original scientific articles.
Scientific evaluation of the sport is still extremely difficult because access to the data of athletes is demanding and sometimes we try to step closer to them through to research of recreational athletes. We will bypass this issue and just looked at real athletes, which will allow for generalization of the findings in the sport itself.
An important contribution will constitute the starting point of research for new students of accredited study programs of Applied kinesiology (UP), Medicine (UM), Physiotherapy (UM and UL), which will be regularly informed about and invited in studies.
Significance for the country
Transfer of technology from research and educational Institutions in the economy and other users of knowledge is one of the major guidelines of the modern single European area. The poor health of the modern man further promotes exigency for integration and the transfer of knowledge and technologies in the field of health and medicine. The EU guidelines encouraging economy and research institutions to transfer knowledge in the fields of human and environmental sustainability development. The project applicant UP SRC as Institute for Kinesiology Research, has woven into its work the cooperation with the economy sector since early beginnings and has been regularly updated it in various projects.
The proposed project will set up a comprehensive solution for rapid, holistic and sustainable rehabilitation process of sports injuries in Slovenia. Therefore, we will expose a method that has its roots in the Slovenian economy, which was upgraded during the project of ARRS (2012-2016) and also which provides a validated measurement of skeletal muscle rehabilitation process. Thus, it has been recognized by FC Barcelona as extremely interesting method for rehabilitation of sports injuries, we believe it has tremendous potential in the economy and society at all. Its relevance is not worth only for the top athletes, but also for other sports participants of all ages and both sexes.
Olympic Committee of Slovenia entering the project as a co-financier, as motivates us and sees the proposed solution as a permanent one for the entire Slovenian sports and encourages us to set up an information system, which will be placed, from their side, as a major system of all National Sports Federations.
Annually, an applicant carries out a various social promotion activity in the field of kinesiology for quality of life. Moreover, regularly carry out promotional measurements for sports clubs, sports sections of secondary schools, and top and recreational athletes as well, etc. We are confident that with directly use and application of new product in practice, we might easily contribute to awareness of the broad masses of the importance of a coherent movement and also on the possible consequences of inappropriate muscle adaptation, and problems resulting from them. We will also contribute new knowledge to the education of relevant experts who will directly collaborate with users (physiotherapists, kinesiology, coaches).
In the last third of the duration of the proposed project, when the main objective of the project has been implemented, we expect candidacy and get two application development projects that will upgrade our work with the final product. We assume that both the final products found place in institutions like educational, medical and research ones, as well as in fitness clubs and other physical activity related places.
Most important scientific results
Interim report,
final report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Interim report,
final report
