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Purpose The prevalence of hip and groin problems in professional male ice hockey is unknown and suspected to differ between playing positions. The purpose of this study was to explore potential differences in the seasonal prevalence of hip and groin problems between playing positions in male elite ice hockey players and to explore the relationship between symptom duration and hip and groin function at the beginning of the new season. Methods Male ice hockey players [n = 329 (92 goalkeepers, 93 defensemen, 144 forwards), Mean age (SD): 24 (5)] from the professional leagues in Sweden responded to an online survey. The survey assessed presence of hip and groin problems (time loss and non-time loss) and symptom duration (categorized into 0, 1–6, or > 6 weeks) in the previous season, and current self-reported hip and groin function (Copenhagen Hip and Groin Outcome Score). Results During the previous season, 175 players (53.2%) had experienced hip and groin problems. Non time loss problems were experienced by 158 (48%) and time loss problems were experienced by 97 (29.5%) players. No significant differences between playing positions were found. Self-reported function differed significantly between players with different symptom duration and more disability was reported among players with longer symptom duration (p ≤ 0.002). Conclusion Regardless of playing position, hip and groin problems were prevalent in male ice hockey players. Players with hip and groin problems during the previous season had significantly worse hip and groin function in the beginning of the new season, and longer symptom duration was associated with more disability. Level of evidence III

Musculoskeletal injury is one of the major adverse events from physical activity and competitive basketball. Time loss away from the court has the potential to physically and mentally impair athletes and impact numerous stakeholders involved [1, 2]. Additionally, prior injury history has been identified as a risk factor for future injury [3]. With these key considerations, reducing the risk of initial injury or future injury following a rehabilitation is of significant interest to all vested parties. While identifying common injuries and risk factors involved in basketball participation may be of clinical importance, the current evidence-base suggests that a strong focus of injury prevention should be placed on properly dosed exercise strategies.

Basketball is known as a team sport with high injury rates, with reports of up to eight injuries per 1000 h of exposure. An increase in injury incidence rates was observed in a recent study, and tight and condensed schedules were considered as one of the contributing factors. Traditionally, ankle sprain is described as the most common injury in basketball, but we observe a high frequency of muscle injuries in our routine clinical evaluation. In professional Basketball, ankle sprains can be managed effectively, and they are not the cause of major time loss. However, muscle injuries can substantially limit a player’s availability to play. This is a significant problem for basketball teams, where basketball players and medical staff do not realize the entire complexity and consequences of muscle injuries. These realizations lead us to certain key clinical questions: what type of musculoskeletal injuries do professional basketball players sustain? How frequently do these injuries occur? How should basketball-related muscle injuries be managed? Can the medical approach be similar to those applied in other sports (ex: soccer)? This chapter will address these questions and provide a structured approach for the management of muscle injuries in basketball.

In many domains, it is common to have procedures, with a given sequence of actions to follow. To perform such procedures, virtual reality is a helpful tool as it allows to safely place a user in a given situation as many times as needed, without risk. Indeed, learning in a real situation implies risks for both the studied object – or the patient – (e.g. badly treated injury) and the trainee (e.g. lack of danger awareness). To do this, it is necessary to integrate the procedure in the virtual environment, under the form of a scenario. Creating such a scenario is a difficult task for a domain expert, as the coding skill level needed for that is too high. Often, a developer is needed to manage the creation of the virtual content, with the drawbacks that are implied (e.g. time loss and misunderstandings).

Knee injuries are frequent in handball, either traumatic or overuse. They represent the highest proportion of severe injuries in terms of time loss from sport, costs, and long-term potential consequences. Ligament and meniscus injuries are responsible for most severe knee injuries in handball with time to return to play often exceeding 6 months. Meniscus tears should not be underestimated as their incorrect decision-making and treatment may compromise the player’s career. Accurate evaluation is essential in both traumatic and overuse knee injuries in handball and must include thorough clinical examination and imaging in order to tailor and provide the best treatment for a safe return to sport at the same level, in both the short term and long term. Several risk factors for knee injuries have been identified. They must be taken in consideration in the development and implementation of prevention programs in handball.

Muscle injuries are among the most common injuries in sport and continue to be a major concern due to training and competition time loss, challenging decision-making regarding treatment and return to sport, and relatively high recurrence rate. An adequate classification of muscle injury is essential for a full understanding of the injury and to optimize its management and return to play process. The ongoing failure to establish a classification system with broad acceptance has resulted from factors such as limited clinical applicability and the inclusion of subjective findings and ambiguous terminology. The purpose of this manuscript was to describe a classification system for muscle injuries with easy clinical application and adequate grouping of injuries with similar functional impairment and provide potential prognostic value. The goal of the classification is to enhance communication between health-care and sports-related professionals and facilitate the rehabilitation and return to play decision-making.

Robotic surgery systems were introduced recently to deal with the basic disadvantages of laparoscopic surgery. However, working with these systems may lead to time loss due to additional robot-specific tasks, such as set-up of equipment and sterile draping of the system. To evaluate loss of time in robot-assisted surgery, we compared 10 robot-assisted cholecystectomies to 10 laparoscopic procedures by the standard technique. The robot-assisted procedures were performed with the ‘da Vinci’ robotic telemanipulation system. The total time at the operating theatre was scored and divided in a preoperative, operative and postoperative phase. These phases were further divided in smaller time frames to precisely define moments of time-loss. Although the median total operating theatre time was longer in the robotic procedures, this difference was not significant (144 versus 199 minutes, p=0,131). The preoperative phase was the single phase to cause time-loss due to three significantly longer time frames: set-up of equipment, preparation of materials and sterile draping. In the operative phase, the trocar entry time frame was longer in robot-assisted cases than in standard procedures. Additionally, postoperative theatre clearing was longer in the robot-assisted cases. In conclusion, robot-assisted surgery leads to time-loss during preparation of routine laparoscopic procedures.

We consider parallel computers (PC's) with fixed communication network and deal with the question, how fast can we simulate PC's with n processors whose communication network has unbounded degree (unfair PC's) by PC's where this degree is bounded (fair PC's). An important class of unfair PC's is thatone of PC's with predictable communication (pred.com.). In such a PC each processor can compute in 0(t) steps the sequence of processors it wants to communicate with during the next t steps. A famous example of such PC's are cubes initialized with ascend-and descend programs as introduced by Preparata and Vuillemin in [5]. They could simulate such unfair PC's with pred.com. with constant time loss using only as many processors as the cube has. We generalize this result by presenting a fair PC which can simulate each unfair PC with pred.com., n processors, and 0(log(n)) storage locations per processor with constant time loss using 0(n1+ɛ) processors for an arbitrary ɛ>0.