27.12.2019
Many top clubs and athletes around the world have trusted the services at Mehiläinen Sports Hospital for years. The hospital’s success is based on solid professionalism and competence, as well as research and excellent networks with international elite sports.
Experience and understanding of athletes’ daily lives
The crucial factors in finding and choosing a place of treatment for an elite athlete’s health issues are the physicians’ experience of caring for athletes, the high standard of hospital facilities, and competent staff. An understanding of the daily lives of athletes and the ability to collaborate with the clubs’ own medical teams are prerequisites for a good partnership. Mehiläinen Sports Hospital has sound experience of this.
Research on sports injuries
Mehiläinen Sports Hospital understands the significance of research in diagnosing and treating athletes’ injuries. Carrying out research in the field allows us to obtain an even better understanding of injury mechanisms and of the various alternatives for treating, preventing and rehabilitating sports injuries.
In recent years, our orthopedists Lasse Lempainen and Sakari Orava have published various studies on subjects such as the treatment of muscle and tendon injuries. They carry out active research collaboration with clubs such as FC Barcelona, and many of their publications have awakened positive international attention. Lempainen and Orava have recently been sought-after speakers at international congresses related to muscle and tendon injuries.
Elite clubs have contacts with global networks of experts in various fields, and their own physicians often consult these experts in relation to athletes’ injuries. Mehiläinen Sports Hospital is best known around the world for its treatments of lower extremity muscle and tendon injuries, and Dr Lempainen, among others, is consulted almost weekly by many clubs around the world. Lempainen’s latest consulting agreement was made in November with the Italian club A.S. Roma.
Specialisation reinforces competence
For many years, the trend in sports surgery has been so-called narrow sector specialisation. The quality of care improves when surgeons focus on their core competences, and this is beneficial for elite athletes and amateurs alike. These days not only athletes but also ordinary people and sports enthusiasts are prepared to travel long distances to receive the best possible care for their conditions. Geographical boundaries are not an issue in this respect.
The best for the best
Foreign customers visit Mehiläinen Sports Hospital’s experts on an almost weekly basis for consultancies and surgeries. This was done in November by Bryan Cristante from A.S. Roma, who consulted Dr Lempainen due to a tear in a hip adductor muscle. A rehabilitation plan was formulated for Cristante, which is now being implemented by the Sports Hospital in collaboration with the club’s own medical team. “Bryan’s condition is promising and it is likely that he will return to the football field with his team during January,” Lempainen says.
Some of the footballers who have had surgery with Lempainen during this autumn include Nikola Vasiljević from Serbia (anterior thigh injury), Rubén Castro Martín from Spain (hamstring injury), Valerio Mantovani from Italy (hamstring injury), Marko Obradović from Serbia (hamstring injury) and Danil Krugovoy from Russia (anterior thigh injury).
The player Malcom, who was sold by FC Barcelona to Zenit for EUR 40 million earlier in the summer, had a tear in his rectus femoris muscle, which also required surgery. The operation was successfully conducted in Turku in October by orthopedists Lasse Lempainen and Sakari Orava.
“Malcom’s condition looks very good. He has carried out rehabilitation exercises according to plan, and I have been in touch with Zenit nearly weekly. He can hopefully return to playing in February,” Lempainen says.
Mehiläinen has top-level hospitals specialising in sports orthopaedics, sports medicine, rehabilitation and physical coaching in Turku and Helsinki. Both hospitals are fully equipped for receiving world-class athletes with various kinds of health concerns. Besides the aforementioned surgeons specialising in muscle injuries, the hospitals have specialists in shoulder injuries, back surgery, neurosurgery and various lower extremity issues.