Our expert trained Primary Care Sports Medicine Physicians will assess and diagnose joint, muscle and sports-related injuries. This includes sprains, strains, joint injuries, fractures, overuse injuries and more. All examinations include a full functional examination, osteopathic examination, and ultrasound diagnostic examination. X-ray is onsite and used as required within your examination. Our sports medicine team will then provide you with a customized treatment plan specific to you, your diagnosis, your functional goals and your lifestyle.

Sports Concussion
A sports concussion can occur following an injury with direct or indirect contact to the head, such as a hit to the body that causes your head to turn quickly. Concussions can cause physical, mental and emotional symptoms that can present differently for each person. Seeking prompt care from a Sports Medicine Physician for a concussion is crucial to starting the recovery process, improving outcomes and returning you to activity. Your provider will provide a thorough screening and evaluation to assess your concussion and create a personalized treatment plan.

Concussion Evaluation
Appointments will be with a Primary Care Sports Medicine Physician who is specifically trained in the evaluation, diagnosis, and management of sports concussions. Your evaluation will include neurologic testing, cervical spine screening, balance assessment vision and vestibular screening with symptom scoring. This information is utilized by our physicians to perform a thorough evaluation and screening to identify what problems you may be having and recommend appropriate treatment.

Neurologic Exam
This is a comprehensive assessment of your hearing, vision, strength, sensation, coordination, cranial nerve function, and reflexes.

Cervical Spine Screening
This screening assesses your posture, neck range of motion, and strength to determine whether the neck is contributing to your concussion symptoms.

Balance Testing
Concussions can lead to changes in balance, which is controlled by the proprioceptive, visual , and vestibular systems. We assess these systems with the Balance Error Scoring System to obtain an objective measurement of your balance in different positions.

Vision Screening
These tests evaluate how well your eyes move in all directions; your visual acuity, and ability to visually focus on objects.

Vestibular Screening
The vestibular system is the way our bodies understand its orientation in space. Simple object tracking tests and positional testing are used to assess the vestibular system.

Concussion Treatment
Based on your examination we customize your plan to fit your unique needs. Each plan has a return to learn and return to play component. Elements of a care plan can include a structured rest and activity plan, physical therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, adjustments to work and school schedule and medication management if needed. All plans are monitored and progressed in conjunction with an athletic trainer and a Sports Medicine Physician. Each patient is reevaluated in person prior to full return to play.

Our Sports Medicine Physicians can help restore your movement and function and provide non-operative interventions to optimize your performance and reduce your risk of re-injury. They also are experts in the use of musculoskeletal ultrasound, which can assess tendon and soft tissues safely without exposure to radiation while allowing for a dynamic assessment of the involved structure. Our expert physicians utilize ultrasound guidance to deliver regenerative medicine therapies, corticosteroid injections, hydrodissection and nerve blocks with far greater accuracy than injections administered without ultrasound. We partner with you to identify the cause of your pain and how this impacts your daily life. Your goals are at the center of our care plans and help us identify treatment options that will help you find relief.

Your provider may be able to perform:

• Facet Joint Injections
  • These injections target the middle or low back pain that originates in the facet joints, which are the joints between the vertebrae of your spine. These injections are often used when pain is caused by chronic changes from arthritis.
• Sacroiliac (SI) Joint Injections
  • The sacroiliac joint is the intersection of the spine and pelvis. Pain from this joint can involve the low back, buttock, groin, and thighs. Injections in this joint help alleviate pain and improve mobility.
• Steroid Injections into Other Joints
  • Joint injections can reduce inflammation and pain caused by arthritis, injury, or degeneration from chronic conditions. They also help identify the source of your pain. In this procedure, a combination of steroid and a numbing medication are injected into the involved joint. The steroid helps relieve inflammation and pain over the long term, and the numbing medication provides immediate pain relief.
• Viscosupplementation
  • Hyaluronic acid is a lubricant injected into the knee joint to help reduce pain and swelling related to arthritis. It is a thick fluid like the naturally occurring joint fluid
• Nerve Blocks
  • A Numbing medication is injected around the nerves that are contributing to your pain by sending pain signals to your brain. The nerve block numbs the nerves and decreases the pain signals. These types of injections can be diagnostic and therapeutic.
• Joint Aspiration
  • In this procedure, a needle is used to remove fluid in a joint to decrease pressure, relieve pain, and improve range of motion. Sometimes the fluid can be tested to help diagnose the cause of joint pain. Joint aspiration can be done on any joint.

Fractures are common injuries sustained by individuals of all ages. Any fracture that does not require surgical intervention can be managed at our clinic with injury-specific follow ups to ensure adequate healing. We are able to X-ray onsite and assess whether an injury can be safely immobilized or will require additional surgical intervention for fixation. We can provide appropriate casting or splinting in office.

Casting and Splinting

• Casts and splints support broken or injured bones and joints. They limit movement and help keep the bone in place until it fully heals. Splints provide less support than casts, but they are adjustable to accommodate swelling.

Bracing and Booting

• Braces and boots can provide an alternative to casts for some ankle, foot, and lower-leg injuries. They can also be used in the treatment of arthritis. Braces and boots are lighter than casts and can be adjusted.

If you have pain and stiffness in your knees, hips, hands, or other joints, you could have osteoarthritis. There are a variety of nonsurgical treatment options available to help you improve pain, increase mobility, and slow the progression of arthritis.

You will work directly with our primary care sports medicine physician with specific and additional training on osteoarthritis as well as diet, weight management, and joint manipulation. They will design a customized treatment plan for you and routinely monitor the progression and response to treatment. As a patient at Avance Care Wilmington, you have unique access to our team of nutritionists, behavioral health therapists, and sports medicine physicians under one roof. This improves care coordination, increases access to care and saves you time and money!

Fueling your body is essential to athletic performance and overall health.

Our team offers the following services to help you achieve your goals:
Nutrition counseling to address the following concerns:
1.    Hydration

2.    Bone Density

3.    Fatigue

4.    Digestive Issues

5.    Disordered Eating

6.    Inflammation

7.    Meal planning assistance

8.    Dietary supplement review

9.    Body composition testing

To learn more about our nutrition services, click here.

Whether you’re training for your first race, or are an elite marathoner, the last thing you need is an injury that stops you from running. Our team of experts specializes in the comprehensive diagnosis and management of runners. Our comprehensive team of sports medicine physicians, nutritionists, and behavioral health therapists develop customized plans to keep you running strong.

Diagnosing Your Injury
At your first appointment, you will meet with a Sports Medicine Physician who will collect a comprehensive history on your injury, training program, diet, sleep, and equipment.
We then will evaluate your flexibility, strength, balance, and gait analysis, which helps us identify irregularities in your running form. Sometimes the way a person moves can contribute to an injury.  We have inhouse x-ray and ultrasound and will use MRI and CT as needed

Customized Treatment Plans
After a comprehensive  biomechanical assessment identifies  issues that are affecting your running, we build an individualized treatment plan. Most often nonsurgical treatments such as physical therapy, shoe correction, and nutrition can solve the problem. We also make recommendations for gait retraining, strength and flexibility exercises, and training modifications.

Wide Variety of Treatment and Rehabilitation Services
We offer a full range of treatment and rehabilitation services, including: Home exercise plans, Dry needling, Soft tissue mobilization, cupping, joint manipulation, nutrition, gait analysis, ultrasound guided injections.

Osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) is a hands-on treatment method. Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) use OMT to treat pain and improve function in muscles, tendons or bones that results from a structural imbalance and a wide array of health conditions.

There are several OMT techniques, which apply gentle pressure to manipulate the muscles, soft tissues, and joints. Each treatment encourages your body to heal itself by ensuring that your bones and muscles are aligned and balanced.

Who can benefit from osteopathic manipulation treatment?
Many people get OMT to treat back or joint pain, it is used to treat many conditions. OMT can improve lymphatic drainage, congestion, colic, and abdominal pain.

What is a DO and why should your primary care sports medicine doctor should  be one?
Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine believes that all the systems in the body work together and, these doctors uniquely focus on the body, mind and spirit as part of one interconnected system. They are fully licensed, have the exact same practice privilege and are equivalent to MDs.  The difference is in training the DOs must complete a minimum of 200 extract hours of hands-on training in OMM in addition to the required traditional medical training. The unique philosophy and additional training in osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) allows DOs to have a comprehensive treatment approach the goes beyond just prescribing a medication.

Your physician will develop a customized treatment plan to help you return to or play golf more safely. Our plans include a custom home exercise plan, with strengthening, mobility work and stretches, soft tissue work, joint manipulation, anti-inflammatory medications, and ultrasound guided procedures if needed. Our goal is to improve your form to decrease the risk of injuries.

Avance Care Specialist Team Access
As an Avance Care Wilmington patient, you have access to our full team which includes nutritionists, behaviorists, sports medicine physicians. Our team is your team.

Community Connections
If you want to take your golf game to the next level and shave off a few strokes on each round, we can recommend golf professionals in the local community who can help.