Athlete healthcare behaviour: an ethnographer's methodological conundrum (original) (raw)
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Social Science & Medicine
Elite athletes face extreme challenges to perform at peak levels. Acute and chronic musculoskeletal injuries are an occupational hazard while pressures to return to play post-injury are commonplace. Therapeutic options available to elite athletes range from novel 'cutting edge' biomedical therapies, established biomedical and surgical techniques, and physiotherapy, to a variety of non-orthodox therapies. Little is known about how different treatment options are selected, evaluated, nor how their uses are negotiated in practice. We draw on data from interviews with 27 leading sports medicine physicians working in professional football and cycling in the UK, collected 2014-16. Using idea of the 'therapeutic landscape' as a conceptual frame, we discuss how non-orthodox tools, technologies and/or techniques enter the therapeutic landscape of elite sports medicine, and how the boundaries between orthodox and non-orthodox therapy are conceptualised and navigated by sports medicine practitioners. The data provide a detailed and nuanced examination of heterogenous therapeutic decision-making, reasoning and practice. Our data show that although the biomedical paradigm remains dominant, a wide range of non-orthodox therapies are frequently used, or authorised for use, by sports medicine practitioners, and this is achieved in complex and contested ways. Moreover, we situate debates around nonorthodox medicine practices in elite sports in ways that critically inform current theories on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)/biomedicine. We argue that existing theoretical concepts of medical pluralism, integration, diversity and hybridisation, which are used to explain CAMs through their relationships with biomedicine, do not adequately account for the multiplicity, complexity and contestation that characterise contemporary forms of CAM use in elite sport.
2021
This study is complementary and alternative treatments of Turkey Wrestling National Team athletes and how it is perceived by Turkey Wrestling National Team athletes were made to determine what their perspectives on this method. Phenomenological design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. The study group in Turkey Wrestling National Team athletes constitute four male athletes. A semi-structured interview form was used to collect data in the study. Content analysis method was used in the analysis of the collected data and it was interpreted using quotations within the framework of the questions determined before. According to the findings, which complementary and alternative treatment methods are used, which of these methods are known, by whom these methods are accessed and under what conditions they are used in 4 categories are given in tables. While it turns out that the most used complementary and alternative treatment method is acupuncture, we see that athletes are aware of these methods thanks to physiotherapists and their friends. In addition, it has been revealed that the treatments that athletes are most familiar with are medical leech therapy, ozone therapy and acupuncture. Athletes consider these treatments as a complement to medical treatments and continue these treatments in the presence of expert physiotherapists. One of the suggestions made as a result of the research is that athletes can be informed about complementary and alternative treatment methods by experts through seminars and conferences.
Sport Education and Society, 2018
Sociological investigations into the athlete-medical practitioner relationship are scarce due to medical bias for positivist epistemologies. The aim of this research was to identify the scope and purpose of medical interventions for four athletes, within the context of social processes that enable medicine to claim athletic bodies as objects of practice and performance. The role and function of power in the athlete-medical doctor transaction and athlete embodiment were also of interest. Using a story-analyst approach grounded in narrative analysis, the ideologies of 'slim to win' and 'performance' were identified as the impetus for the athletes seeking the expertise of doctors. Doctors were positioned as accomplices in 'slim to win' and 'performance' ideologies within the athletes' stories, which influenced medical practices and compromised athlete health. Disciplinary power was enacted when the doctors observed, corrected and manipulated the athletes' bodies through medical practice. Athletes also had agency through renegotiating the meaning of the 'treatment' process by reconfiguring medical doctor's disciplinary power as forms of empowerment knowledge. This research highlights the complex nature of the athlete-medical doctor transaction and how these encounters can be productive and oppressive for athletes.
Journal of Advances in Medicine and Medical Research
The popularity of doping in competitive sports is relevant for all those involved in sports, particularly for evaluating anti-doping policy measures. However, there is a gap of information that addresses this subject so far. As a consequence, the prevalence of doping in competitive sports in resource limited countries is unknown. Even though it is challenging to uncover the exact prevalence of herbal products with prohibited activity such as doping, various methods put in place by world antidoping agency (WADA) have now been adopted to uncover parts of this particular problem, and enables the circumvention to some extend the issues of honesty, definition problems and the limits of pharmacological evidence. It is evident that current doping control test results can show a distinct underestimation of true doping prevalence in low middle income countries (LMIC). Nowadays, doping is a critical issue at international levels of sporting competitions. Athletes’ use of herbal supplements ha...
China Goes Global: Sports Medicine & Sports Management in China
This study highlights introduction of domestic and international public offering of sports medicine national medical organizations in China. The articles which implement the Party and the state of health, sports, science and technology policy of principles and policies and double standard, and implementing the theory and practice, universal principle of combining with the increase, reflecting China's sports medicine research and clinical work of the important progress, and promote domestic and international sports medicine academic exchanges, to enhance China’s national constitution and the level of technology to improve services to sport. There are a number of traditional sports medicines in China which are sometimes even much better that the modern day medicines. For example, Penetrans Plus which is an MSM-based ointment that provides the body with an important ingredient used in the building of cell walls (MSM), and which carries it's pain-relief ingredients deep into the muscle. Tiger Balm wonderfully soothing ointment that heats up the muscle nicely. Sports crème odorless pain killing ointment but it helped make sleep possible. This study reveals that the Chinese traditional medicines in use for centuries are more effective in the local climate than the modern medicines
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Little is known about provision of medical services to adolescents prior to participating in international top-level sports. This study aimed to investigate experiences of medical service provision among high-level adolescent athletics (track and field) athletes from three continents. A thematic narrative analysis was applied to data collected from 14 athletes by semi-structured interviews. Although competing at the highest international level, these adolescent athletes had difficulties making sense of symptoms of ill health, especially on their own. With increasing exercise loads, the athletes’ medical support needs had extended beyond the capacity of parents and local communities. As there was no organized transfer of the responsibility for medical support to sports organizations, the athletes often had to manage their health problems by themselves. There were major variations among the adolescent athletes with regards to medical service access and quality. The services used range...
Ethical issues in the practice of sports medicine in the contemporary world
Revista Bioética, 2019
Sports medicine has evolved considerably in the last decades because it is inserted in a globalized world context and due to a high degree of technological development. It is worth remembering that major sporting events, such as the last Olympics in 2016, involve large investments and that, consequently, this financial impact, together with the evolution of technologies, might put sport physicians in situations that demand consideration regarding ethical conflicts. These matters can encompass the use of new technologies in modifying athletes' bodies, doping and the development of super athletes, and how to deal with vulnerable people, such as children and teenagers who are candidate future athletes. Based on a review of the literature, this essay had as objective to consider these conflicts, based on the ethical arguments and principles present in official documents that deal with the topic.
Health in Elite Sports – a “Bio-Psycho-Social” Perspective
Deutsche Zeitschrift für Sportmedizin, 2015
This text replaces that on pages 1-18 of the Forty-fifth edition of Basic documents, following the coming into force of amendments adopted by the Fifty-first World Health Assembly. CONSTITUTION OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION 1 THE STATES Parties to this Constitution declare, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations, that the following principles are basic to the happiness, harmonious relations and security of all peoples: Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.
BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 2021
While society watches athletes and artists on a screen during the COVID-19 pandemic, some proponents tout ‘normalcy’ as the moment live in-action play resumes again. However, when we ‘see’ these athletes, are we truly seeing them? Failing to understand and address athletes’ adversity faced during this pandemic amidst social pressures to return to play under a preconceived notion of ‘normal’ commoditises athletes; instead, we must humanise them while recognising additional burdens they bear amidst unmet healthcare needs. Athletes and performers represent a unique population; they stand at the intersection of racial and socioeconomic health inequity and societal expectations for entertainment. Returning to the field or stage suddenly, unscathed by effects of global viral and racial pandemics, is impossible. Instead, athletes face resuming play with a sobering realisation the pursuit of health is not fulfilled with the same tenacity for everyone. This editorial is to raise awareness to...