The majority of athletes presenting to a sports medicine clinic have a musculoskeletal condition. While this is typically related to trauma, a reasonable percentage of these patients have pain that is related to either an inflammatory condition or another medical problem. It is not uncommon for patients to relate their pain to an injury.
It is outside the scope of this module to review individual rheumatological conditions. It is important however to be able to distinguish between pain which is related to mechanical factors and pain which is caused by an inflammatory condition.
This module will also discuss some of the issues related to osteoarthritis.