TMC PULSE

November 2018

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T M C » P U L S E | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 8 35 shared far and wide. Over the past four years, the technique has become a mainstay in rehabilitation programs throughout Houston and the United States. "Now it's an integral part of most physical therapy programs," Lowe said. "It's all over the country. It's used in every NFL training room, every NBA training room—it really has blossomed very quickly." Professionals working with elite athletes have started to use the therapy not just for injury rehabilita- tion, but for routine training, as well, since lower weight load can reduce the risk of injuries outside the game. Athletes "spend hours on their legs each day, so it's a way to strengthen without having huge loads applied to their bodies, which they get too much of anyway," Lowe said. "It substitutes lower-load exercise for some of the higher-load ones, and you can still build similar strength profiles." BFR has become so popular that it is now being applied to the every- day patient. Kyle Shortsleeve, a veteran of the U.S. Army, found BFR to be instru- mental in his recovery after a partial knee replacement in July of 2017 at age 30. Shortsleeve, who spent six years on active duty, encountered a number of injuries during training and deployment. He was medically retired in 2015 due to osteoarthri- tis in his knee. After his surgery, he went to Memorial Hermann IRONMAN Sports Medicine Institute, where his trainers intro- duced him to BFR. Shortsleeve found the therapy helped with muscle hypertrophy—the growth and increase of the size of his muscle cells. "One of the reasons why this therapy has been so helpful is because the more muscle I'm able to build, the more protected my knee joint will be," Shortsleeve said. "It was really effective when I was first recovering because it allowed me to gain strength and do some exercises that would contribute to hypertro- phy without adding a ton of weight. I wasn't in a lot of pain and it was still relatively low impact." Shortsleeve, who enjoys moun- tain-biking, snowboarding and backpacking, has regained his quality of life. He works in medical device sales and, according to his Fitbit, averages about 12,000 steps a day. "I'm often standing in the oper- ating room and I'm moving around in my customers' clinics, so I need to be mobile to do that and then have stamina to continue to live my per- sonal life after a long day of work." Just like Clowney, he isn't slow- ing down. Kyle Shortsleeve uses a blood flow restriction (BFR) device at Memorial Hermann IRONMAN Sports Medicine Institute. The Texas Medical Center congratulates TMC Pulse staff on recent awards: Alexandra Becker won the 2017 Sigma Delta Chi Award for magazine writing (regional/local circulation), given by the Society of Professional Journalists, for "Alan Dickson's Final Days," a profile of a hospice patient. Cody Duty won a first place Houston Press Club Lone Star Award for print photography for "Scar Stories: Portraits of Survival." These photos also appear in "Body as a Work of Art: More Than Skin Deep," an exhibit at The Health Museum that runs through Jan. 11, 2019. Britni R. McAshan won a first place Lone Star Award for her column, "Curated: The Intersection of Arts and Medicine." Shanley Pierce won a first place Lone Star Award for her magazine article "Twin Skin: 3 TMC Doctors, 2 Identical Sisters and 1 Extraordinary Transplant." Pierce also won a third place Lone Star Award for her column, "On the Side: How TMC Employees Spend Their Spare Time." TMC Pulse won a first place Lone Star Award for magazine layout for the March 2017 issue. Read the award-winning stories at www.tmc.edu/news/awards/ Congrats, TMC Pulse

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