Medical problems of the athlete

Abstract

Family medicine encompasses a wide range of disease processes that can benefit from regular physical activity. In addition, the specialty serves a population that can span from elite athletes to a sedentary desk worker and from a geriatric speed walker to a peewee football player. As such it is important to understand how the diagnosis, management, and approach to these patients and their varying disease processes differ in the setting of exercise. This chapter examines in some detail medical conditions such as asthma, hypertension, diabetes, anemia, and various skin diseases in the setting of athletes, as well as the unique features of physical activity and the special populations of women, pediatrics, and geriatrics.