Sports Medicine

Dr. C. Harmon Brown, considered a pioneer in the fields of sports science and medicine, died of cancer Tuesday at his home in San Mateo, Calif., USA Track & Field said in a news release. He was 78. Brown, a professor at UC San Francisco, was a longtime member of the medical and anti-doping commission of the International Assn. of Athletics Federations before stepping down last year. Trained as an endocrinologist, his lifelong passion was track and field.

The Dodgers' pitchers and catchers will show up at Camelback Ranch in Arizona in a few days for spring training. And so will Sue Falsone. She won't be in the stands; she'll be in the dugout and the clubhouse, with the guys. She's the Dodgers' new head athletic trainer and physical therapist - and she is the first woman to become head trainer in any of the four major professional sports. This Buffalo gal has taken a career lap around the country, from her native upstate New York to a master's degree at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, to the boys of summer's spring training turf in Arizona, and a previous stint at Dodger Stadium, where she was first hired as an assistant trainer for the team in 2007.

Bruno Balke, 92, a professor of kinesiology and physiology who was considered to be a founding father of sports medicine. Born in Germany, Balke was educated at the University of Berlin, where he received his doctorate in medicine and taught there from 1937 to 1942. He contracted infectious hepatitis while serving with the German Army on the Russian Front during World War II and was transferred to the School of Mountain Rescue in the Tirol.

Matt Leinart caught an unlucky break during a 20-13 win against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday. The Texans quarterback had been playing a strong game when he was slammed by a hard tackle. Although X-rays at the time were inconclusive, Leinart appeared to have a broken collarbone and may have to sit out the rest of the season. Injuries to the collarbone, or clavicle, are not uncommon on the gridiron. The number of neck injuries from playing football is relatively higher than those in other high-contact sports, according to a 2005 study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

With the Mighty Ducks hockey team enhancing Anaheim's position as a professional sports center, one of the nation's premier sports medicine facilities has decided to open a clinic in the city. The Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedics Clinic, which counts the Los Angeles Rams, California Angels, Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Kings among its clients, will open an office near the Anaheim Arena by the end of the year, a spokesman for the clinic said last week.

The Dodgers' pitchers and catchers will show up at Camelback Ranch in Arizona in a few days for spring training. And so will Sue Falsone. She won't be in the stands; she'll be in the dugout and the clubhouse, with the guys. She's the Dodgers' new head athletic trainer and physical therapist - and she is the first woman to become head trainer in any of the four major professional sports. This Buffalo gal has taken a career lap around the country, from her native upstate New York to a master's degree at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, to the boys of summer's spring training turf in Arizona, and a previous stint at Dodger Stadium, where she was first hired as an assistant trainer for the team in 2007.

Dr. Ronald Boyce Mackenzie, epidemiologist and sports medicine expert who was former director of the National Athletic Health Institute at Centinela Hospital, has died. He was 71. Mackenzie died Monday of prostate cancer at his Palm Desert home. Working with athletes in the 1970s, Mackenzie served as a physician to individual professional golfers and to several Southern California professional sports teams including the Dodgers, Kings, Lakers and Rams.

A $1.7-million, 17,000-square-foot sports medicine facility, designed to be the therapy and rehabilitation center for Inland Empire colleges, high schools and the U. S. Karate and Water Ski teams, has opened in Riverside at 4444 Magnolia Ave. Known as the Community Orthopedic Medical Group of Riverside Inc. and SPORT (Sports Physiology and Orthopedic Rehabilitation Therapy) Clinic, the 17,000-square-foot facility was built by CPE Engineers of Irvine. Renovation Under Way A $6.

Among the seemingly endless list of credits that roll by at the end of TriStar's "Bugsy": "Special thanks to Dr. Leroy Perry Jr., the International Sports Medicine Institute." Just what did Dr. Perry--considered one of the world's foremost sports trainers and a pioneer in the field of sports injuries--have to do with "'Bugsy," a film whose only sport is fistfights and mob murders? According to Perry, his contribution was making sure Beatty had the proper "look" for his role as the mobster.

As one ventures into the Biomechanics Research Laboratory of the Centinela Hospital Medical Center, it might appear as if time has been advanced. This isn't a motion-picture version of a laboratory with foul-smelling potions and curious test tubes. Yet, the sight of Dodger pitcher Orel Hershiser making a delivery with wires attached to his body would lead one to believe that truth is stranger than science fiction. The Biomechanics Research Laboratory is a think tank for sports medicine, and Centinela is a leader in the field.

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick says he's ready to play against the New York Giants on Sunday, a week after sustaining a concussion while playing the Falcons last Sunday in Atlanta. Vick missed practice on Wednesday but was checked out by a neurosurgeon and allowed to resume practice and playing.   According to Eagles coach Andy Reid, Vick has shown no ill effects of the concussion in the ensuing practice sessions. "I'll tell you, he's been sharp," he said, according to Associated Press.

Kevin Guskiewicz, one of the winners of the MacArthur Foundation award announced Tuesday, was long a thorn in the side of the National Football League. Since 1999, he has wired the helmets of about 700 college football players with accelerometers to study what kinds of hits result in concussions , which kinds of players get them, and what the long-term consequences of those brain injuries can be. He was among the first to find a strong link between multiple concussions and later dementia, depression and memory and intellectual deficits that often lead to Alzheimer's disease.

Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger's 13-year-old son, Christopher, was seriously injured in a boogie boarding accident in Malibu, L.A. Now reports . It's any parent's nightmare -- a fun day at the beach leads to a potentially life-threatening injury. The jury's out on exactly how safe water sports like boogie boarding and surfing are. A 2007 study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine found that surfing is far less dangerous than many other sports, with just 6.6 significant injuries per 1,000 hours of surfing.

New exercise guidelines released by the American College of Sports Medicine Tuesday may be more detailed than the last, but don't worry -- the overriding message is that pretty much any kind of activity is better than sitting on the sofa. Thanks to copious new research the guidelines, last updated in 1998, got an upgrade. The 150-minute or more per week rule for cardio is still there, as is information on strength training. Perhaps the biggest change is the relaxing of stringent exercise guidelines, says Carol Ewing Garber, ACSM vice president and associate professor of movement science at Columbia University . The previous approach emphasized reaching goals for cardio and strength training, a la, "You must do this or you won't improve your fitness and health," Garber says.

Just two days after the start of the winter strength-and-conditioning program, Jim Poggi, a University of Iowa freshman football player, called his father to report that his body ached from the intense workouts. The pain in his arms and legs had not subsided even after a weekend of rest. "He called afterwards and said it was hard work and he was very, very sore," Biff Poggi said of his son. By the third day of workouts, on Jan. 24, it was clear something had gone terribly wrong.

A two-minute test that can be administered on the sidelines of a sporting event revealed the disruptive effects of brain trauma as reliably as a longer and more unwieldy concussion test used by the U.S. military, according to a study published this week online in the journal Neurology. The King-Devick test is designed to identify the presence of disturbed eye movements that come with a blow to the head. Using three cards printed with eight rows of single-digit numbers, a tester asks the test-taker to read the numbers as quickly and accurately as possible.

Olivia Jamusu was only in the eighth grade when her shoulder started hurting. A talented club volleyball player and swimmer, she had apparently stretched and torn the ligament that holds the head of her humerus bone into the shoulder socket. The pain grew steadily worse. By her junior year at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, "I would come home from swim team practice crying," she says.

The circumstances were uncanny. They were 6-foot-7 basketball players. They were 23 years old. They wore No. 44. They collapsed during games and died five days apart. Victims of heart problems. Tony Penny, formerly a Central Connecticut State player, died Feb. 27 in a Manchester, England, hospital after collapsing during a game. But the similarities to the death of Loyola Marymount's Hank Gathers don't end there.

If anyone serves as a larger-than-life example of the ability to survive cancer and return to physical exercise, it's Lance Armstrong. The premier U.S. road-racing cyclist won a record seven Tour de France competitions from 1999 to 2005 after having undergone surgery and chemotherapy treatments for testicular cancer that had spread to other parts of his body. Three years ago, Livestrong, the cancer-fighting foundation Armstrong created, teamed up with YMCAs nationwide to offer fitness training programs for those with cancer and those who have survived the disease.

An initiative launched by the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. to screen close to 167,000 college athletes for "sickle cell trait" is "full of potential pitfalls" and should be recast before taking effect, two experts from the National Human Genome Research Institute and a leading pediatrician have warned.  The NCAA program -- the first large-scale effort to use genetic information to reduce injuries -- is likely to be a...