BSc (Hons) Sports Therapy

Acute Injury and Trauma

This module introduces you to the role of the Sports Therapist in the identification and management of acute sporting injury. It will provide you with the knowledge and skills to detect, identify and manage acute sporting injury from serious life threatening injury, to common soft tissue sporting injury. It will include on-field examination and making return to play decisions. You will gain an accredited first-aid qualification.

Evaluating Sport, Exercise and Health

This module will use a sport, exercise and health science context to develop study and research skills through practical application.

You will be introduced to simple methods of quantitative research and data analysis together with the rationale for those methods. You will experience a wide range of learning modalities to develop your study skills including:

• Practical data collection
• Computer laboratories
• Group seminars
• Group and individual tutorials.

Fundamentals for Sports Therapists

This module aims to enhance your knowledge of the structure and function of the body’s cells, tissues and systems. The integration of the study of the normal physiology of body tissues with pathological conditions that may commonly affect them is a key theme running through this module. The module examines the relevance of these pathologies and the body’s response to them in our clinical practice.

Fundamentals of Human Physiology

This module will allow you to examine how key systems such as the musculoskeletal system, the cardio-vascular system and the respiratory system affect human performance. Specific attention is paid to energy metabolism in the context of the exercising human across the breadth of the energy spectrum.

Human Anatomy

This module introduces you to the musculoskeletal system of the human in context of its functional activity during everyday life and sporting activities. This module aims to analyse the movement parameters of the principal musculoskeletal zones of the body. You will develop palpatory skills and analyse joint movement and investigate the muscles involved in simple limb and trunk activity.

Introduction to Applied Exercise Physiology

This module aims to develop an understanding of the application of scientific principles and techniques to evaluate human performance. Consideration will be given to the selection of an appropriate data collection environment (i.e. laboratory versus field) and the applicability across a range of activities that spans energy provision.

Soft Tissue Massage and Manipulation Techniques

This module will provide you with a foundation on which to build further skill and expertise in the art of soft tissue massage and manipulation. You will gain the theoretical principles and practical skills to plan and implement appropriate treatment to address soft tissue dysfunction through the phases of tissue injury and to provide general conditioning for the tissue through periods of training and competition.

Sports Injury Management 1

This module aims to introduce the role of the Sports Therapist in the clinical assessment and treatment of injury. It provides a basic foundation on which to build further knowledge, skill and expertise. The module will cover an introduction to examination and assessment of the lower limb and provide an introduction to the planning and delivery of safe and effective treatments thereof. You will learn and develop skills in clinical assessment, sports taping and basic exercise therapy.

Rehabilitation: Return to Function

This module will provide you with the theoretical knowledge, understanding, and practical abilities to plan and implement safe and effective, progressive rehabilitation programmes that are both injury and functional specific, and address the individual needs of the patient.

Sports Injury Management 2

This module provides you with a safe and effective assessment and management of soft tissue and sport-related injuries. The module also aims to enable you to understand the gross structure and function of the upper body and the typical pathological responses of the body. It also aims to equip you with signs and symptoms of clinical pathology and the mechanisms of injury aetiology.

Neuromusculoskeletal Manual Therapy to the Spine

This module provides you with the knowledge, understanding and ability to provide the safe and effective assessment and management for the cervical, thoracic, lumbar vertebrae. It will give you the ability to apply comprehensive neurogenic, arthogenic and myogenic examination, assessment and treatment techniques appropriate to the above regions.

Rehabilitation: Return to Completion

This module will allow you to consolidate your theoretical knowledge and develop your practical ability to lead rehabilitation sessions in a group setting that are injury-specific and applicable in both the sport and occupational setting. You will learn to plan, implement and evaluate safe and effective group rehabilitation programmes that are appropriate to the needs of the patient’s transition during the phases of late-stage rehabilitation, to return to competition/occupation.

Clinical Biomechanics

This module aims to build upon the core biomechanical principles underpinning the practical analysis of human movement. It will also consider the role of biomechanical analysis in sports therapy and the assessment of patients. It will serve to widen your knowledge base and show the integrative nature of the separate disciplines of therapy and biomechanics.

Researching Sport, Exercise and Health

The module will provide you with practical skills of conducting research in the sport, exercise and health environment, and you will further your research skills, including ethical considerations, research design and methodology, analysis and write-up.

Clinical Placement (Sports Therapy)

Students are expected to undertake a placement or placements, which in total would constitute a minimum of 200 hours experience that enables them to develop, apply and reflect on their clinical practice across the core areas of sports therapy practice. The indicative content will ultimately vary upon the nature of the clinical placement. The student will be expected to take responsibility for a patient caseload; examining, assessing, treating and managing athletes under the supervision of a specialist clinical mentor.

Dissertation

You are encouraged to identify a research question appropriate to your degree pathway that is of interest and relevance to your studies. The investigation may be based within single or multiple disciplines. An appropriate approach to addressing the question is then determined through discussion with tutors in your chosen area.

Advanced Neuromusculoskeletal Manual Therapy

This module aims to provide you with the expertise to apply safe and effective manual therapy and mobilisation techniques to the peripheral joints of the body. It will give you the ability to apply a comprehensive range of manual therapy techniques appropriate to a wide range of presenting problems in the peripheral joints and aims to develop a more clinically reasoned approach in your management.

Psychology Of Injury And Rehabilitation

This module enables you to critically evaluate the psychological, social and cultural factors in injury risk, theories of psychological responses to injury, recovery and adherence to rehabilitation programmes. It will critically evaluate theory and research, and consider practical approaches to working with injured athletes to assist them with their response to and rehabilitation from injury experiences.

Therapeutic And Clinical Electrotherapy

This module provides you with the theoretical knowledge and practical expertise to apply Ultrasound, TENS, Interferential and LASER safely and effectively. It will equip you with the clinical reasoning regarding the implementation of these modalities. It will also investigate the research regarding the usage of these modalities.

Advanced Sports Trauma And Injury Management

An opportunity for you to consolidate your knowledge and further develop existing skills. The module aims to challenge current concepts in sports therapy practice, further develop a clinically reasoned approach in differential diagnosis and management of more complex and multifactorial presentations. This module prepares you for the complexities and realisms of clinical practice in all settings.

Nutrition for Sport Performance, Physical Development and Health

This module aims to examine the ways in which dietary intake influences energy metabolism, recovery of skeletal muscle after exercise, exercise performance and training adaptations. Strategies to manipulate the dietary intake of energy, macro- and micro- nutrients through food choices and supplements will be examined in terms of their role of optimisation of training adaptations and sporting performance. An important component of the module will be the practical application of nutritional theory to the sporting arena.