Sports medicine is now offered at Shriners Children's Shreveport; new gym opened

SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) – Shriners Children’s Shreveport is now offering a new specialty and opened a new facility Thursday, November 14.

Sports medicine is now offered at the facility, located on Samford Avenue. On Thursday, health facility officials also cut the ribbon on a new sports medicine rehabilitation center designed to help children with sports-related injuries.

“We are excited to add this new service line. It’s the first service line we’ve added in a long time. So it’s a great feeling to officially add sports medicine,” said Jerry Defatta, Chairman of the Shriners Board of Directors.

“When you work with adults, your job is to get them back to work. Well, play is work for kids, so we want to do everything we can to get them playing again,” said Damian Duhon, therapy services manager at Shriners.

This is the third healthcare specialty offered at the Shriners. In 1922, the facility began offering pediatric orthopedics, adding cleft lip and palate care in 2012. This new specialty will consist of a team of healthcare professionals, including an orthopedic surgeon specialized in sports medicine, an athletic trainer, physical therapists and others.

Shriners wanted to add sports medicine to their service after realizing that about 25 percent of children coming in were dealing with sports injuries, which inspired the hospital to create a space that would best help young athletes recover.

“Children want to play sports again. They want to have fun while they do it. A lot of the places in this area are built for more adults,” Duhon said. “Children are not little adults. They respond to injuries and heal differently. So this provides the kind of equipment that we need to achieve those things.

Shriners has the only pediatric-specific sports medicine facility in the region.

The new gym features a large indoor space, hitting nets, a basketball hoop, exercise bikes, fan bikes, pylo boxes, obstacles and specialized balance equipment. There is also a large artificial grass field, where patients can simulate sports movements on a realistic surface. The new facility, together with existing motion analysis and radiology services, will enhance the hospital’s ability to make a difference in the lives of children.

“We are very pleased to introduce sports medicine as our newest healthcare specialty at Shriners Children’s Shreveport,” said Susan Bryant, PT, MBA, MHA, clinic director. “We believe that sports medicine is a natural extension of the care we provide, and that we are ideally suited to provide the expertise and specialized technology to help children recover from injuries and return to sport with confidence. With this new offering, we look forward to building on our strengths to bring care to more children in the ways we can have the most impact.”