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 With Peter Drugge, Sweden's Chief Medical Physiotherapist

Physiotherapist, Peter Drugge, has been part of the Physiotherapy team at the Capio Artro Clinic in Stockholm for 13 years. He has also been the Swedish Olympic Committee’s Chief Medical Physiotherapist for eight years overseeing the physical welfare of Sweden’s national teams. We catch up with Peter before he flies out to Vancouver to oversee the facilities for Team Sweden at next year’s Winter Olympics.

1.What influenced your decision to become a physiotherapist?

I was always sporty at school and decided to train as PE Teacher. At the same time I was playing volleyball at national level but suffered several career threatening injuries including patellar luxation and meniscus tears in both knees. After surgery, I started to train again and frustratingly suffered the same injury. It was at this time that I felt that there must be something I could do to prevent re-injury. In Sweden, Sports Medicine is a very established discipline. It was initially started by Doctors in the late 50’s but was soon being practiced by PT’s and is now regarded as the standard of care in injury management . I decided to I drop my teaching career and began training as a Physiotherapist back in 1979.

2.Tell us more about the Capio Artro Clinic:

The Clinic, the biggest sports medicine clinic in Sweden, was set up in 1993 by Magnus Forssblad and specialises in operative arthroscopy, traumatic and sports related injuries. We have a team of 55 including 12 Orthopaedic surgeons and 17 physiotherapists (of which I am one). Every year the clinic sees over 25,000 patients who perform approximately 4,500 operative procedures - and two out of every three of the ACL reconstructions that take place in Stockholm. The Clinic is affiliated to the Stockholm Sports Trauma Research Center.

3.What type of research is the Center working on at the moment?

There are several studies going on right now including Matrix Induced Autologous Chondrocyte Implant; a study on the repair of cartilage in the knee; four studies on the diagnosis and treatment of “Jumpers Knee” and Achilles Tendinosis and surgery involving eccentric training and sclerosation.

4.As the SOC’s CMP, what is your role and which sports are you most involved with?

As a member of the Swedish Olympic Committee`s (SOC) resource team I provide medical support to the smaller national teams with few athletes and less funding for both summer and winter sports which include Figure Skating, Speed Skating, Curling, Boxing, Judo, Taekwondo and Shooting to name a few. I follow the teams at one or two events each year – usually during training camp and competition.
For the next Olympic Games, Vancouver 2010, I’m responsible for all logistics prior to and during the Games to make sure that the medical support services for our athletes are up to standard, and to support my colleagues where necessary.  I’m involved at some level with most of the medical teams, but the teams with more funding  have their own medical staff and use me for event logistics while the smaller teams like Figure Skating, Speed Skating and Snow Boarding are supported by the SOC’s full medical team.

5.What treatments have you seen growing in usefulness/benefit to patients?

Functional rehabilitation and electrotherapy. I’ve used electrotherapy for 25 years and as I’m from Sweden I’ve have always been a Cefar man!  I use it in specific areas for sports as well as for rehab. I often start with acupuncture or Electrotherapy before exercise and I also find it helps relax the muscles and increase circulation before and after training. For post-op patients at the clinic I often use electrotherapy in two ways prior to rehab: firstly as part of the pain relief programme and secondly to help restore the muscles that have been affected by surgery.

6.Which do you prefer - Plastercast or Aircast?

As far as I’m aware we haven’t used plaster casts at the Clinic for many years.

7. Sweden had their most successful Olympics at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin coming 7th overall with 7 Gold medals, 2 Silver and 5 Bronze – what, in your opinion, are your prospects at Vancouver 2010?

Our Men’s Ice Hockey team won gold at Turin and we really want to keep it - some of them wear DonJoy braces – although I can’t reveal who they are, as it could give our competitors an unfair advantage!  The Women’s curling also won Gold at Turin, but they have yet to qualify. We all have our fingers crossed waiting for their performance at the World Championships in April. In addition we have our Biathlon, Alpine skiing, Cross country skiing and Women’s Ice Hockey medals to defend!

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