GE Healthcare (NYSE:GE) and the National Basketball Association today announced the 1st round of winning research proposals submitted to their Sports Medicine and Orthopedic collaboration, which was launched last year.
The joined Sports Medicine and Orthopedic strategic collaboration aims to fund research to address prevention, diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal injuries affecting NBA players and everyday athletes.
“NBA players are among the best in the world, and the NBA is committed to their health and well-being, which is why we’re excited to team up with GE Healthcare and leading researchers for the benefit of the players and our game. The projects we’re announcing today include important areas of focus for the NBA including injury prevention and youth health, as well as advanced technologies and methods such as new approaches to imaging, wearable technology and biomechanics,” NBA veep David Weiss said in a press release.
The 1st set of selections focused on natural history, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of tendinopathy, the groups said.
“Tendinopathy – and specifically that involving the patellar tendon – is a common issue among basketball players at all levels. The NBA is pleased to work with GE Healthcare to fund additional research in this area to increase our understanding of this condition as we seek to improve health outcomes and limit the impact on athletic performance for NBA players and the general population,” proposal co-chair Dr. John DiFiori said in a prepared statement.
Included in the selection were studies on patellar tendon pathology, real-time monitoring of tendon strain, preventing patellar and achilles tendinopathies, platelet-rich plasma therapy for patellar tendinopathy, a longitudinal assessment of patellar tendinopathy in elite basketball players and progressive tendon-loading exercise therapy for patellar tendinopathy in jumping athletes.
“The collaboration between GE Healthcare and the NBA has provided a unique opportunity to do high impact research. This call for proposals attracted dozens of high-quality submissions from leading tendinopathy researchers. Selection of the winning projects was a challenging task, relying on an independent scientific review panel of 22 academic and clinical experts to evaluate the scientific merit of the submitted research projects,” GE Healthcare global research organization chief scientist John Sabol said in prepared remarks.