Greetings from Rio!

Lecturing At The Rio Olympics

I just had the distinct pleasure of lecturing at the 2016 International Sports Medicine Meeting being held in conjunction with the Olympics at Rio de Janeiro. One could feel the electricity in the air. Before going there I was warned about the crime, terrorism, and the mosquitos. Well no crime, no terrorism and no mosquitos! I ran into people from every nook and cranny in the world. You might be in the elevator with someone from Croatia, and the next time from Gabon or the Ivory Coast. I had the good fortune of attending a few events. One which I found enjoyable was beach volleyball. Below was the Brazil vs Croatia match.
The meeting which I lectured at mainly focused on Sports Medicine. Some of the lectures centered on traditional aspects and than some such as my talk were more cutting edge. The doctors come from Europe, Asia, the Mid East, and South America.

One of the lecturers discussed his success in treating chronic spinal conditions with extra corporal shock wave therapy (ECSW). This type of therapy utilizes acoustic waves generated by the shockwave machine. This type of therapy triggers a number biological effects which lead to faster and long-term healing and regeneration of the tissue. One way in which this technique works is by calling stem cells to the area. The process of calling stem cells to the area is called homing. Shockwave therapy (SWT) covers a wide range of orthopedic indications. We have used this therapy in our office for a few years with excellent results. It is one of the tools in our armamentarium. We occasionally use this therapy as the primary therapy. When checking on a regenerative medicine clinic this should be a question that is asked. Does the clinic use ECSW therapy?
My lecture covered various aspects of Regenerative Medicine including the use of PRP and Stem Cells. I shared with the doctors a good synopsis of the Regenerative Medicine field as it pertains to Orthopedics. They were very intrigued with the Arthrolavage technique. The Arthrolavage technique is totally unique to our clinic. It consists of “washing out” the knee with a solution that has certain growth factors in it. The types of growth factors and their ratios are the “secrete sauce”. This mixture works on disabling the growth factors which cause pain. The Lavage technique works essentially all the time in eliminating pain in a large joint. We are still not sure how long the relief will last. We do this technique in conjunction with our stem cell procedures. In a study we are doing we have found that the joints treated with lavage got better quicker and the patient had less pain while they were recovering from their procedure. You can read more about this in the blog about Arthrolavage.
Other aspects were discussed such as the use of a pluripotent cell that is found in our body but it is essentially asleep. The trick is to awaken the cell and have it active in helping to correct problems. Our clinic has the good fortune to have utilized these cells for some time now. Also the use of various growth factors were discussed. This seems to give us an advantage in our quest to conquer our patient’s pain. These are just some of the aspects that continue to separate our clinic from the pack.
Finally, we have a personal pride in the Olympics since we have treated number of athletes who are participating in these games. Most are from the United States but we have a sprinkling from another country or two. Thanks Dr. P

Joseph Purita, MD