History and clinical evaluation

Abstract

This is possibly the most important part of the care of athletes. Case histories and previous medical examination results should be available for all athletes, rather than waiting for an injury and then attempting to obtain the information. It is not uncommon for a young athlete to come to me with one problem, e.g. an ankle sprain, and I have then found, through a case history, that they have chronic chest problems that are not being treated. A young athlete with a chronic chest problem tires easily, making them potential victims of accidents. The job of the team osteopath should be to promote health and make a contribution to the future of the athlete. The team osteopath should not only look for disqualifying conditions, but conditions that can be improved upon, enhancing the athletic potential of the young athlete.

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between medieval and modern medicine is that the former was primarily based on pure empiricism directed by mysticism and intuition, whereas the latter attempts to understand the mechanisms of disease — through an objective scientific analysis — and to treat it by influencing well-defined points along the pathways of its development. Up to the present time, the greatest progress that has been made along these lines has resulted in specific therapeutic procedures that are designed to eliminate in each case the particular primary cause — the eliciting pathogen of a disease . . .

By contrast, throughout the centuries, we have learned virtually nothing about rational, scientifically well-defined procedures that would help the body in its own natural efforts to maintain health quite apart from the attacks on the pathogen . . . Let us remember that it is not the microbe, the poison or the allergen, but our reaction to these agents that we experience as disease.

(Selye, 1955)