Inflammatory Response Essay

Primary damage response

• Inflammatory response is the first response when an injury takes place, which involves increased blood supply to the tissues so that contents of the blood can help in the healing of process. Infection is prevented by white blood cells and platelets help with clotting.

• When an athlete feels pain it’s a sign that the athlete should stop the activity they are doing because they might make the injury worst. The injured tissues send chemical messages to brain to say something is not right in the body. Swelling of tissue caused by increased blood flow putting pressure on the nerves in the area.

• Healing response – it takes about 12 hours to 4 days for an injury to start healing. Healing process involves new capillaries being made to replace the damaged

capillaries which will provide the tissue with a blood supply again. During this process the dead cells are removed. Fibrin is laid down and this is when the scar tissues begin to form.
• The clotting mechanism – to stop an individual from bleeding out, the blood needs to clot.

The clot formed by platelets from the blood stream sticking together and sealing the wound. Platelets are sticky, so other platelets can stick together, which forms a platelet plug. Fibrin is formed within the blood clot to make the clot stable. Fibrin is replaced eventually by a strong collagen fiber replace the tissue that was damaged during the injury.

Physiological responses - Specific to injury

• Sprain – When ligaments are stretched or twisted or torn it’s a sprain, which is caused by excessive force being applied to a joint. Ligaments are tissue that is attached to bone. Sprains usually occur at the knees, ankles, wrists and thumbs.

• Strain – When muscle fibres stretch or tear it’s strain injury which is caused by muscle being stretched beyond its limits or forced to contract (shorten) too quickly. Muscle strains legs and back, such as hamstring strains and lumbar (lower back) strains.

• Haematomas – The collection of blood is called haematomas and it takes place when bleeding take place in the tissue. The muscle is together between the body of impact and the bone central to the

muscle.
There are two types of haematomas
• Intramuscular haematomas is remains trapped inside the muscle cover which resulting in bleeding inside the muscles which results in a blood clot inside the muscle. The pain in the muscles because there is a build-up of pressure inside the muscles. Like for an example muscle tears, strains.
• Intermuscular haematomas is the escapes of the muscle cover through a tear or break and the blood is able to move with fibre is the surrounding tissue, bruising, swelling, a loss of power in strength and a loss of range of movement. The causes of blood flow is damaged muscle.
Psychological responses - Response to injury
• Anger – you can be angry with yourself because you might have made a current injury worst by returning to soon and they can also be angry with the person that caused the injury.
• Depression – if an athlete gets injured they could suffer from depression, such as decreased energy levels, continual sadness and being anti-social.
• Isolation from teammates – if you are a footballer for example you may feel isolated from your teammates because you are not being involved in competition and training, resulting being mentally withdrawn from their team.
Psychological responses - Response to treatment and rehabilitation
• Frustration - an athlete can get frustrated if they see no improvements or if there is no progress in the healing of the injury.
• Need for motivation – if an athlete has a long term injury, they will need to stay motivated and positive to recovery from the injury and to perform well, when they return to action. Rehabilitation can often support an athlete with these motivation issues.
• Anxiety - the uncertainty of the treatment and rehabilitation methods to heal the injury may cause the athlete to have anxiety.
• Use of goal setting – when an athlete is injured especially if the injury is long-term, they need to use goal setting strategies which can help you to keep track of progress and to see the improvements that have been made.