By Michael Ahearne ’14
THE ROUNDUP
While athletes recover from injuries, many will use the new and advanced technology available to them through Athletic Trainer Mr. Chris White and his staff.
“We basically have the same sort of equipment that physical therapists have, that high level pro sports use, that colleges use,” Mr. White said. “It’s all here.”
Mr. White said he is very proud of his program and the technology it has.
“Our highlights of our program are therapeutic modalities,” Mr. White said. “We use the most recent, current, best therapeutic modalities.”
Therapeutic modalities are used in a variety of ways to help with muscle conditions, tissue healing and other treatment goals.
Mr. White has two of these machines, but also just received a brand new machine that not only has ultrasound and electrical stimulation currents, but also laser treatment.
Another highlight of the Sports Medicine facility is the Bod Pod.
“It uses a process called air displacement plethysmography,” Mr. White said. “We test every single freshman as part of health class plus anybody at Brophy can get tested.”
After testing, Mr. White said he can fairly accurately assess body fat and lean body mass in anyone.
Students then evaluate their diet and find out where their calories and nutrients come from. After that, they set a goal and set up custom diet plans.
Mr. White and his staff also use concussion baseline testing and “Impact” software to help with concussion recovery.
“We do neurocognitive testing on all of our higher risk athletics to see how their brain is normally working so that if they are concussed we have a test that we can compare against to see if their brain has truly recovered,” Mr. White said.
“Impact” allow students to log in and go through a serious of neurological tests that analyze brain function.
This is made accessible to Mr. White so he can then retest them after a concussion to help make sure their brain has recovered.
Mr. White also uses things such as simple as apps and Google to help him in the office.
“All our medical records are done through Google forms that I created,” Mr. White said.
This helps allow Mr. White to be able to watch and communicate with his other staff members even when they are working on someone out on the field.
Students who help Mr. White also get to use some of this technological equipment.
“I’ve been in Sports Med, this is my fourth semester, and for the technology, when someone’s injured, he has different machines that do different things,” said Jeremy Jesberger ’15. “I help him administer the treatment sometimes, so if he’s in the middle of doing something or too busy and I’m in there, he’ll set up the treatment … and he’ll tell me what to do.”
