The Fitness Facility as a Rehabilitation Care Extender

In brief: Fitness facilities can play an important role in the postacute rehabilitation of injured recreational athletes, especially now that sports medicine practitioners are widely accessible. Such facilities offer special equipment necessary for rehabilitation; their hours suit the recreational athlete's schedule; they can reduce the cost of rehabilitation; and they can help make the injured person the primary agent rather than a passive participant in re habilitation. But patients need supervision by a practitioner to pursue such active rehabilitation safely. The practitioner should know what equipment the patient's health club has and should give him or her detailed instructions for rehabilitative exercises.