Injury Prevention and Management

As part of your professional practice as an Exercise Scientist you will need to assess, identify and manage a range of common sporting injuries by applying evidence-based and theory-informed clinical reasoning skills as a core competency for all health professionals. You will utilise your clinical reasoning skills to actually manage and treat a range of sporting injuries.

It follows logically from these professional requirements, that there is a need for you to understand the mechanisms for, prevention of, and immediate management of, common sporting injuries for patients across a lifespan and the practical skills associated with such situations. To achieve this, you will need to build on your previous anatomical, biomechanical and pathophysiological knowledge. The course will help you to become competent and confident managing real world emergencies and sporting injuries whilst acknowledging the medico-legal responsibilities that bind all health practitioners. Your technical and clinical reasoning skills will be developed by focusing on clinical case scenarios to encourage flexible thinking and real time problem solving. All lecturers and demonstrators are practicing clinicians in the fields of physiotherapy or exercise physiology with a strong focus on evidence based practice. The theoretical components will be progressively integrated with practical skills to align with Exercise and Sports Science Australia (ESSA) accreditation expectations and the opportunity to complete a First Aid Certificate and Sports Trainer (Level 1) through Sport Medicine Australia if you choose.

The core aim of 3007AHS Injury Prevention and Management is to ensure that you develop evidence-based and theory-informed clinical reasoning and practical skills that enable you to effectively prevent, treat and manage a range of sporting injuries safely within your scope of practice.

After successfully completing this course you should be able to:

1 Link the mechanism of injury (internal and external forces) to the anatomical and pathophysiological properties of common sporting injuries.

2 Integrate the medico-legal issues that bind all practitioners including drugs in sport to your theoretical and practical management of patients.

3 Demonstrate your clinical reasoning capacity by applying the principles of injury assessment and first aid management, including sporting emergencies.

4 Discuss the relationship between the environment, equipment and your patient by linking the principles of preventing injury in sport.

5 Recognise your patient as an individual by creating appropriate assessment and treatment plans across their lifespan by considering medical co-morbidities, psychological factors and nutritional components.

6 Distinguish your role in the injury management field through analysing treatment modalities of different practitioners by comparing and contrasting them to your own treatment modalities.