There are over 400,000 doctors practising in Germany. There are dozens of different specialties. One of them is the specialist in sports medicine. We asked: Who actually goes to a sports medicine specialist and when exactly?
Prof. Dr. Bernd Wolfarth and Dr. Thouet from the Institute for Sports Science and Sports Medicine at the Charité in Berlin clarify:
Who usually comes to see you at the Institute? Who are your patients?
Prof. Dr. Bernd Wolfarth: We are now one of the largest sports medicine facilities in Germany, we simply have a high number of patient contacts per year and this also results in a very wide range of different patients. It really does range from young athletes to professional athletes to Olympic champions. But we also see 40- to 60-year-old checkup patients and patients who are seriously ill and who have been recommended sport as a therapy.
Dr. Thomas Thouet: Then, of course, we also have a very large proportion of healthy, athletically ambitious people who might otherwise not even think of going to the doctor for advice. It also has to be said that the range of sports medical examinations offered by health insurance companies has improved considerably, i.e. the costs have been clarified, and that brings a relatively large number of ambitious recreational athletes to us who simply want to get better advice about their sports activities.
Sports medical examinations are health insurance benefits!
Obesity and lack of exercise have increased sharply since 2020. It is advisable to have your exercise capacity examined before (re)starting sports.
With what concerns or complaints do I go to sports medicine? When does a sports medicine examination make sense?
Prof. Dr. Bernd Wolfarth: We are now one of the largest sports medicine facilities in Germany, we simply have a high number of patient contacts per year and this also results in a very wide range of different patients. It really does range from young athletes to professional athletes to Olympic champions. But we also see 40- to 60-year-old checkup patients and patients who are seriously ill and who have been recommended sport as a therapy.
Dr. Thomas Thouet: Then, of course, we also have a very large proportion of healthy, athletically ambitious people who might otherwise not even think of going to the doctor for advice. It also has to be said that the range of services offered by health insurance companies for sports medical examinations has improved considerably, i.e. the costs have been clarified, and that brings a relatively large number of ambitious recreational athletes to us who simply want to get better advice about their sports activities.
How do you deal with the different patient groups?
Prof. Dr. Bernd Wolfarth: When we get cancer patients, cardiological patients, type 2 diabetics or obese patients, for example, who are to take up sport. There, too, it's a matter of examining the resilience. Here, too, the aim is to rule out any contraindications or problems related to the underlying disease that could be aggravated by exercise. In part, this is also about optimizing the therapy and enabling really safe exercise, which then has a positive secondary effect on the disease. Particularly in this 40 to 60 year segment, it is often the case that someone comes to sport either as a newcomer or as a returnee. Then, on the one hand, we have to clarify the health situation, i.e. say whether it is safe to do sports. On the other hand, we can of course also give advice on how to reasonably start doing sports. In other words, we can objectify performance, and of course we can also derive training advice from the examinations that we perform and thus give people advice on how they can practice sport safely on the one hand and successfully and in a goal-oriented manner on the other.
