Athlete rehabilitation can be considered both continual and sequential steps. Rates of progression are not constant and setbacks are common. Rehab provides the opportunity to develop the athlete in areas beyond just the injury as the following steps illustrate:

Diagnosis & Assessment

Acute Injuries – I did this and now it’s broken
Chronic Injuries – Knee has been sore for months and I’m not sure what happened
There is an overlap between the two sometimes e.g. my ankle’s been sore for ages but I hurt it today now it’s broken.

Acute Injury Assessment – mechanism of injury, adequate history, accurate assessment of pathology, structures injured, and the extent/severity of the injury. It can be investigated with history/examination, ultrasound, X-Ray, MRI, CT scan.

Chronic Injury Assessment – pathology, assess cause, history, examination, biomechanical assessment, intrinsic and extrinsic factors.