Career Integration Research Assignment: Athletic Training Essay

The field of athletic training is one of the fastest expanding careers today. This could be due to the much greater demand for health care providers. Athletic trainers specialize in preventing, diagnosing, and treating muscle and bone injuries. They work with a diverse group of patients, from young children to professional athletes. Athletic trainers are usually part of a sport medicine team, which tend to include a physician, physical therapist, and even a sport psychologist. Many athletic trainers work in educational facilities, such as high schools and colleges. However, much of their time is spent on the sport fields. The profession requires the trainers to apply their wide range of medical knowledge and, in order to do so, athletic trainers must have strong interpersonal and communication skills to converse with the athletes, coaches, physicians, and parents (Occupational outlook handbook, 2012). Athletic trainers are mainly responsible for injury recovery and prevention. However, these responsibilities are physical concerns, but what about the mental concerns? There is a movement within the athletic training field to approach sport injuries with a more holistic perspective. Many athletic trainers have had inadequate education in sport psychology to institute any sort of psychological methods in their rehabilitation programs. This paper will discuss some of the prospective ideas and various methods of rehabilitation tactics that could be used in the field, as well as how to properly train athletic trainers to administer both these mental and physical treatments. These mental treatments will be related back to sport and exercise psychology concepts; examples of this include strategies for setting realistic goals, methods fo... ...es to increase rehabilitation adherence. Athletic Therapy Today, 13(3), 18-19. Naylor, A. (2009). The role of mental training in injury prevention. Athletic Therapy Today, 14(2), 27-29. Occupational outlook handbook. (2012, March 29). Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Healthcare/Athletic-trainers.htm Podlog, L., & Eklund, R. (2009). High-level athletes' perceptions of success in returning to sport following injury. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 10(5), 535-544. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2009.02.003 Stiller-Ostrowski, J., & Ostrowski, J. (2009). Recently certified athletic trainers' undergraduate educational preparation in psychosocial intervention and referral. Journal Of Athletic Training, 44(1), 67-75. Wiese, D., Weiss, M., & Yukelson, D. (1991). Sport psychology in the training room: A survey of athletic trainers. Sport Psychologist, 5(1), 15-24.