Sports podiatrist

The Podiatrist is a health professional with podiatry degrees. He’s specializes in the examination, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disorders of the foot. He uses drug therapy, orthoses, rehabilitation, and surgery with functional, biomechanical and postural application.

The Podiatrist at the international level, is defined “Podoiatra” in the United States and in all Anglo-Saxon countries and he’s a figure similar to the dentist.
He has a broad background in the basic medical disciplines, this allows you a better understanding of the causes of thedisease process, it is of systemic origin that of local origin.
The rehabilitative/therapeutic intervention occurs in all ages, from pediatric to the geriatric.

In Italy in particular, is a Health with functions provided by DM of the “Ministry of Health” 14/09/1994, N°666 and subsequent amendments and additions:

• treat, after examination of the foot, with bloodless, orthotic and hydro-massotherapic methods, the callosity, hypertrophic nails, deformed and ingrown and foot pain;
• prevent and treat the ulcers and warts of the foot;
• assist, also for health education, the subjects with threatening diseases;
• detect and signal to medical specialists the suspected medical conditions that it requires a diagnosis or systemic therapeutic intervention
• carry out professional activities in health facilities, public or private, as employees or freelance.

The practice of sport causes an excessive use of osteoarticular system, muscle and skin.
Is therefore important to study the gestures of any sport, to improve the natural movements of execution and also prevent the risk of sports injuries.
A new specialized figure has been developing in the Italian podiatry: "The Sports Podiatrist".
In fact, in the year 2008/2009 was opened the “Master of Sports Podiatry” at the Catholic University of Rome, created and coordinated by Prof. Avagnina.

The main objectives of the Sports Podiatrist:
- Identify and treat the postural and biomechanics diseases of sports.
- Check the function of the foot in all sports, using specialized tests, to study the “timing”, the dynamic pressure of the feet and their correlation with certain diseases.
- Treat diseases of the nails and skin (hyperkeratosis, ingrown toenails, plantar warts, sweating problems, blisters), during and after the competitions.
- Take action to improve, enhance and promote the sport

The presence in the “Sports Medicine Team” of the podiatrist sports is very important because the foot especially in sports is subject to conflicts and problems: blisters, sprained ankle, tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, stress fractures etc..
Studying every sports movement, we can create some orthotic insoles to the rebalancing and stabilization(custom-cut ). This orthotic insoles can also adapt to the training shoe and competition shoe.

The role of the podiatrist is continuous and he intervenes on the athlete throughout his sport activity.

Before the competition, he occurs on static and dynamic problems, making corrections on diseases that have been encountered in training.
During the competition he works on the emerging diseases, also applying orthotic insoles; to treat acute diseases like tendonitis.
After the competitions, the podiatrist treats diseases occurred during the competition.