A world class centre for sports injury management needed in Varanasi

Varanasi: The temple town Varanasi has emerged as a hub of medical and health care with a number of government-run and private hospitals, medical college hospitals and trauma centres, but the city still lacks an institute solely dedicated to the management and treatment of sports injuries.

However, Dr Ashutosh Agarwal, a noted orthopedic surgeon, operates a well-equipped centre for sports injury management in the city. “Sports injuries like sprains, fractures, bone dislocation, and ligament tears are a result of accidents occurred while playing games. A dedicated treatment for sports injury mainly aims at making the patients to enable them to carry on with their sports career. The treatment includes many procedures both operative and non-operative,” said Dr Agarwal adding that the city needs a world class institution to serve the sports persons. Currently Dr. Agarwal runs Ayushman Hospital and Trauma Centre in Alaipur and Mehmoorganj areas of the city.

“The sports persons generally prone to injuries, which may come in different forms including sprains, strains, knee injuries, swollen muscles, Achilles tendon rupture, fractures, dislocations and rotator cuff injury,” said Dr. Agarwal.

According to him, the sprains are caused by overstretching or tearing of the ligaments, which are pieces of tissue that connect two bones to one another in a joint. Similarly, the overstretching or tearing of m

uscles or tendons causes strains. The knee injuries are very common among the sports persons. During sports the Achilles tendon, which is a thin tendon at the back of ankle, breaks causing sudden and severe pain. In dislocation a bone is forced out of its socket, which is very painful. The rotator cuff, which is formed by four pieces of muscles to work together, keeps the shoulder moving in all directions. A tear in these muscles can badly affect the rotator cuff causing pain.

 

“We, at our hospital, treat the patients in both ways -through arthroscopy and joint replacement,” said Dr. Agarwal. Arthroscopy (also called arthroscopic or keyhole surgery) is a minimally invasive surgical procedure on a joint in which an examination and sometimes treatment of damage is performed using an arthroscope, an endoscope that is inserted into the joint through a small incision. The joint replacement (knee replacement or hip replacement) is a surgical procedure in which parts of an arthritic or damaged joint are removed and replaced with a metal, plastic or ceramic device called a prosthesis. The prosthesis is designed to replicate the movement of a normal, healthy joint.

“We always use imported implants, and that too at one-fourth cost in comparison to the treatment in metro cities,” claimed Dr. Agarwal, who established his hospital in Varanasi in 2006 after working with top orthopedic surgeons in Delhi for eight years. His wife Dr. Anu Agarwal, the director of Vansh Fertility and Test Tube Baby Centre, is a specialist in Hysteroscopy, Laparoscopy and infertility care.