DISC: Pressroom

Michael Gervais, PhD featured on ESPN 2011 Elite 11

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:19:25 GMT

Dr. Michael Gervais, High Performance Psychologist, was featured in this year's Elite 11 training camp. This year's finals were held at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., July 18-22. Twenty-four of the best signal callers in the nation competed. Former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer and a team of coaches evaluated players' skill, on-field intelligence and overall performance. "The Elite 11 camp was incredibly competitive for the top high school quarterback prospects in the Country,” says Michael Gervais, Phd. “Their ability to thrive, with little sleep, with the ESPN cameras on, in a high-stakes competitive environment was inspiring to all who was part of the camp. It was a joy to be part of developing and fine-tuning their competitive mindset. I can't wait to see how these fine young men capture their skill and talents in years to come." About ESPN Elite 11 ESPN RISE’s Elite 11 is the nation’s premier quarterback competition for high school athletes. Notable Elite 11 alumni include Vince Young, Matt Leinart, JaMarcus Russell, Mark Sanchez, Matthew Stafford, Troy Smith and Tim Tebow. Two one-hour features on the Elite 11 will aired at 7 p.m. ET Aug. 12 and 19 on ESPN as part of its Year of the Quarterback programming. http://rise.espn.go.com/football/events/2011-Elite-11.aspx

DISC SET TO REVOLUTIONIZE MINIMALLY INVASIVE SPINE SURGERY IN ORANGE COUNTY

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:59:43 GMT

Renowned Pioneer Dr. Robert S. Bray Opens Second DISC Facility August 15 Newport Beach Center to be Directed By Dr. Burak Ozgur Access Hi-Res Artwork: http://bit.ly/kwLnCQ Watch DISC Doctors Perform Groundbreaking Spine Procedures: http://www.discmdgroup.com/oc-expansion/ Marina Del Rey, CA – July 6, 2011 – This summer, Orange County will gain access to unparalleled spinal care when DISC Sports and Spine Center (DISC) opens its newest facility in Newport Beach. Fueled by a growing demand for DISC’s specialized, minimally invasive techniques, the launch will take place on August 15 and marks a first-of-its-kind offering for the region. DISC is the brainchild of CEO & Founding Director Dr. Robert S. Bray, a spine surgery pioneer and the first California neurosurgeon to devote his practice to minimally invasive techniques. Modeled after DISC’s existing parent center in Marina del Rey, DISC Newport Beach will feature an outpatient surgical center; a spinal care, orthopedics & pain management clinic; a soft tissue & rehabilitation center and a diagnostic imaging center. All services will be housed in the same 38,000 square-foot state-of-the art facility—a prime location at the Bayview Corporate Center, 3501 Jamboree. With the vision of revolutionizing the patient experience and transforming the once-complicated spine surgery into an outpatient procedure with reduced stress, Dr. Bray founded DISC in 2006. Since then, the center has performed thousands of minimally invasive procedures for world-class athletes, VIPs and weekend warriors alike, with a zero MSRA infection rate. DISC offers a truly multidisciplinary environment, with diagnostics, pain management, physical rehabilitation and soft tissue therapies. The center’s unique, personalized care has generated a steady flow of patients since launch and double-digit growth last year. “The words ‘spine surgery’ no longer need instill fear or equate to months of grueling recovery, and DISC has prided itself on changing those misconceptions through minimally invasive techniques,” says Dr. Bray. “Our patients experience one-on-one attention from diagnosis to rehab, in a facility built to a higher standard than the hospital setting and specifically designed for efficiency and safety. This completely new healthcare model is working, and now it’s time to expand.” Determined to provide the same quality of care that has attracted DISC partners such as the US Olympic Team and Los Angeles Kings, Dr. Bray has hand-selected Dr. Burak Ozgur to lead DISC’s new Orange County facility. As director of Cedar Sinai’s Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery unit, Dr. Ozgur had long respected Dr. Bray’s groundbreaking work and jumped at the opportunity to be part of his vision in Orange County. Dr. Bray was attracted to Dr. Ozgur’s unique background, which included a split fellowship that allowed him to specialize in both ortho spine and neuro spine techniques. [Read bios for Dr. Bray and Dr. Ozgur HERE.] “DISC is truly a customized boutique type of comprehensive clinic where the focus is on quality rather than volume,” Dr. Ozgur says. “We look forward to expanding the options available to Orange County residents by bringing this new level of minimally invasive spine surgery and care to Orange County.” About DISC Sports and Spine Center As an official medical services provider of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), DISC Sports and Spine Center (DISC) is one of America’s foremost providers of minimally invasive spine procedures and advanced arthroscopic techniques. Dr. Robert S. Bray, Jr. founded DISC with the vision of delivering an unparalleled patient experience for those suffering from sports injuries, orthopedic issues and spine disorders. DISC’s individually picked, highly specialized physicians apply both established and innovative solutions to diagnose, treat and rehabilitate their patients in a one-stop, multi-disciplinary setting. With a wide range of specialists under one roof, the result is an unmatched continuity of care with more efficiency, less stress for the patient and a zero MRSA infection rate. For more information, contact DISC at 866.481.DISC or visit www.discmdgroup.com. # # # Contact: Kristien Brada-Thompson Priority PR +1 310 954 1375 x2

Short Track Star Katherine Reutter Gets Unique Boost for World Championships Competition

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:36:37 GMT

Short Track Star Katherine Reutter Gets Unique Boost for World Championships Competition Special Medical Treatment at D.I.S.C. Facility Eliminates Back Pain Two-time World Cup Short Track Speed Skating Champion Katherine Reutter, who will compete in the Short Track World Championships this weekend in Sheffield, England, made a quick stop along the way which not only will allow her to compete, but will help her reach her highest performance level. Reutter, who had taken three hard falls to the ice recently and was suffering from significant back pain, needed treatment in order to be able to compete. Her four-hour visit and treatment at the D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center in Marina del Rey, CA stopped the pain and put her back on the ice. After the treatment, Reutter was allowed to continue practicing in Salt Lake City in preparation for the event, with no restrictions placed on her training. “It was awesome being able to get the MRIs, see all of the doctors and get treated in one day. I am so grateful to the team for getting me back on the ice in that short amount of time,” said Reutter, who saw four expert physicians in four separate fields, in just four hours. Reutter’s first point of contact at D.I.S.C. was Dr. Joseph Horrigan, the Director of the Soft Tissue Center. Following Dr. Horrigan’s evaluation, Reutter was prescribed MRIs and X-rays, which are quickly available on site. Reutter then received almost immediate results in D.I.S.C.’s Ambulatory Surgery Center, where she consulted with neurosurgeon and D.I.S.C. founder, Dr. Robert S. Bray Jr., and Pain Management Specialist, Dr. Michael Port. Dr. Bray and Dr. Port viewed computer imagery and X-rays, and discussed the findings with Dr. Jerrold Mink, a nationally recognized radiologist. It was determined that structurally, Reutter was in perfect condition; she did not have a stress fracture or any other musculoskeletal disorders. “We’re proud to have helped Katherine and many of her fellow Team USA Athletes with their sports injuries,” says Dr. Bray. “Our philosophy at D.I.S.C. has always been to set a higher standard of care for our patients and we are committed to bringing this approach to the U.S. Olympic Family.” D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center is one of the country’s leading facilities specializing in spine, orthopaedics, and sports medicine. Established in 2006, D.I.S.C. has quickly risen to national prominence and is cited by many as the gold standard in medicine. D.I.S.C.’s unmatched continuity of care is designed with the goal of relieving pain and helping its patients restore motion and function for a rapid return to an active lifestyle. Equip with the region’s most technologically advanced outpatient surgical center, D.I.S.C.’s services encompass conservative care, diagnostic imaging, spine care, orthopaedics, pain management, physical medicine and rehabilitation, chiropractic care, and sports medicine.

Katherine Reutter Skating to Success

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 19:20:13 GMT

The 2010 Vancouver Games launched Reutter into the spot light as one of the world’s fastest women on the ice. At the young age of 22, Reutter won a silver medal in the 1000m and also a bronze medal in the 3000m relay. Her ability to perform at such a high level is even more impressive when you know what thoughts and fears Reutter had to manage; she knew that she likely needed surgery on an ailing hip. When the excitement from the closing ceremonies for the Vancouver Games subsided, Reutter started searching for a doctor that she could trust to take care of her specific needs as a world class athlete. Reutter visited three different surgeons but when she was referred to D.I.S.C. Sports & Spine Center, an Official Medical Services Provider of the U.S. Olympic Team, she knew that she had found the right place. “D.I.S.C. is the only place that I felt totally comfortable enough to do my surgery,” says Reutter. “Dr. Millstein treated me with respect and trusted that I knew my body, unlike many other surgeons I’ve met.” On June 14, 2010, Eric Millstein, MD performed a minimally invasive hip arthroscopy for Reutter at D.I.S.C.’s outpatient surgery center in Marina del Rey, CA. Post surgery, Reutter faced an enormous challenge having only three months to rehab until the start of her 2010-2011 season. Despite being on crutches for the first month, Reutter was determined to get back on the ice and resume her spot at the top. During her recovery Reutter had to continually judge how hard to push her body. Reutter said, “I would have one hard day in training that would flare my hip up and then I would have to back off for the rest of the week.” Dr. Millstein guided Reutter to listen to her body, set her own limits in training and pace her progress. At the end of the three months post surgery, Reutter flew home for the weekend for some R & R, shortly after that Reutter states, “one day I came to practice and it never hurt again.” With Reutter’s hip back in business, her coaches, Jae Su Chun and Jun Yeo, were able to design her training to allow her to be competition ready. On Oct. 24, 2010, only 5 months post surgery, Reutter won her first 2010 Speed Skating World Cup gold medal in Montreal, Canada in the 1500m. A week later, Reutter won another World Cup gold medal in the 1000m, making her total life-time World Cup medal count to 23 medals. Reutter is now leading the world cup rankings in the 1000m, making her the USOC Athlete of the Week. Katherine is moving forward with ambitious goals for the season, aspiring to be top 3 overall in the World Cup Series, make the US World Championship Team- and of course- bring home some World Championship hardware! Everyone here at DISC wishes you good luck this season Katherine, your unwavering dedication is an inspiration to us all!

Dr. Bray Featured on Good Morning America and Extra with Jennifer Grey

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:25:02 GMT

Jennifer Grey: 'Baby' Makes a Comeback The former "Dirty Dancing" star opens up about her struggle with cancer. For a full article on Jennifers Grey's road to recovery Click Here

D.I.S.C. Puts Actress Jennifer Grey Back On The Dance Floor

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:27:31 GMT

In between rehearsals for “Dancing With the Stars” we catch D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine patient and actress Jennifer Grey for a quick check-up. Nobody puts Baby in the corner. It’s one of the great lines from Hollywood movies. When Patrick Swayze reached out his hand at the end of “Dirty Dancing” to pull a shy, pretty wallflower onto the stage with him, it touched America’s heart, and did what movies do best. It made us want to fall in love -- especially with someone who would find us when we were hiding. It made us want to dance. For the last 23 years, however, that actress, Jennifer Grey, has not been dancing. Shy of the fame the film brought her, and suffering chronic pain from a tragic car accident, America’s sweetheart banished herself to the proverbial corner. Now “Baby” is back in the spotlight, delighting audiences on ABC’s hit show “Dancing With the Stars” with her new professional partner, Derek Hough. But the truth is that Jennifer, 50, would not be waltzing around without the skill and expertise of D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center, and Dr. Robert Bray, the man Jennifer credits for saving her life. Twice. “I had been asked to do DWTS nine or ten times,” Jennifer explains. “Every year since the show first began. I never considered it.” The reasons are complicated. After “Dirty Dancing” came out in 1987, Jennifer became a big star. Everyone in the world assumed she was a dancer. She is not. Jennifer is simply an actress - without dance experience – who played a girl who was learning to dance. The role, and her brilliant performance in it, turned out to be an iconic one. The sudden (and enduring) fame made Jennifer so self-conscious in her normal life as a wife and mother that as the years passed, she grew afraid to go to exercise classes that involved any type of dance. She feared that people in the class would be watching her, expecting her to be perfect, and judging her when they saw that she was not. Jennifer stopped doing the one thing that had brought her so much joy: dancing. The other reason she kept turning down the coveted slot the producers wanted her to take on DWTS is that way back in 1987, one week before “Dirty Dancing” opened, Jennifer was on vacation in Ireland with her then-boyfriend Matthew Broderick when their car was involved in a head-on collision. The occupants of the other car were killed. Jennifer felt lucky that her life was spared. She tried to ignore the pain that followed. “I knew that I had horrible whiplash,” she says, “but it wasn’t until I was older that I realized how serious it was.” As the years passed, Jennifer turned to other forms of exercise to stay fit and healthy: yoga, Pilates and weight training, but everything she tried took a toll on her. “My neck became such an issue that I stopped working out my upper body,” she says. After Patrick Swayze’s death from pancreatic cancer last year, Jennifer remembered how fearless he was, and became inspired to take more risks. She wanted to stop hiding from life and job opportunities in her field of acting. She wanted to stop being that wallflower he’d once pulled out of a corner. The next time the producers from DWTS called, Jennifer finally said yes. She needed to pass a routine physical first. Friends referred her to Dr. Robert Bray, because she wanted to discuss her neck pain with an expert. “Basically I went to Dr. Bray, because I heard he was the best from people I respected,” Jennifer says. “He was by far the best of everybody, and his name kept coming up. When I went in for my exam, I thought Dr. Bray was going to say, “You’re fine, go have fun,’ but I was completely stunned when his response to my films was, ‘Your spinal cord is so damaged that if you slipped or fell or got rear-ended in traffic, you’d be paralyzed. Immediately.’” “When I saw Jennifer, her exam was very abnormal,” explains Dr. Bray. “When you tapped her reflexes, they were very, very jumpy, which is a sign there is something pressing on the spinal cord.” He took x-rays of her neck, with her head bending forward and back. “Her neck had a very dramatic angulation, and a slippage of one vertebrae on the other, to an extent where it was dangerous,” Dr. Bray says. “The amount of slippage that was there was actually cutting off the area where the spinal canal could run through.” He sent her for an MRI. “Jennifer’s longstanding injury had resulted in ligament laxity and instability,” Dr. Bray says. “That was resulting in a dangerous level of compromise of her spinal cord and some early damage to her spinal cord.” The spinal cord needs room to live. It’s surrounded by fluid. The hole that the spinal cord runs through, the spinal canal, needs to be about an inch wide (15 or 16 mm). If it gets below about 7 or 8 mm, the spinal cord itself has no room left to sit, or live, without fluid around it. “As little as 100 grams of pressure, just a simple touch, of pressure on the spinal cord at that level can damage it permanently,” says Dr. Bray. “Jennifer had compromised her canal so severely that there was no fluid around the spinal cord. None. It was already starting to do damage, the joint was unstable or slipping,” Dr. Bray says. “That means a fall, a sudden head movement, a minor rear-end accident, a slip on the dance floor, and she’d be paralyzed. It really was that bad.” “We didn’t give her any options,” Dr. Bray admits. “She was told no. No, she cannot dance. No, she cannot do any type of workout. No, she cannot play any sports.” He adds, “Frankly, I told her she probably shouldn’t be driving around.” Jennifer needed to have neck surgery. “She couldn’t look up to kiss her husband good-night,” Dr. Bray adds. “She could not raise her head, because her head was aimed at the ground. I had to sit down so she could talk to me. She couldn’t actually look up to see me. Her head wouldn’t go up.” (Dr. Bray stands 6’5”. Jennifer Grey is 5’3”.) The position that Jennifer took in the Viennese waltz on the first night of competition, with her head inclined gracefully back in her partner’s arms, would not have been possible for Jennifer to do just a few months ago, Dr. Bray says. “Her head was falling off, forwards, because of this joint that was unstable.” “I was so frightened by the prospect of spinal surgery,” Jennifer admits. “Just the fact that I knew he was the best. I knew I’d be in the greatest hands.” “The first operation she needed was to put her head back into position and lock this joint in place that was grossly unstable and frankly dangerous,” Dr. Bray explains. Dr. Bray performed an anterior fusion through the front of her neck to put Jennifer’s neck back into alignment. “We took out the disc completely, lifted the neck up and put it back over where it belongs. This reduced the angulation and instability. Then we put in a titanium plate,” Dr. Bray says, “Which was actually one of my own plates, an RSB plate that I designed and put through the FDA. It locked that joint back into position.” The surgery worked beautifully. “It changed the angle of her head over 20 degrees,” Dr. Bray says, and got Jennifer out of danger. Unfortunately, that wasn’t all the surgery the actress needed to have. As a result of the long-term effects of trauma caused by the old car accident, Jennifer had what Dr. Bray calls “accelerated life wear and tear” at other levels, which caused her shoulder pain and arm pain. Dr. Bray needed to operate on Jennifer a second time to remove spurs from her neck that were causing her that pain. But before he did that, Dr. Bray noticed a strange lump on Jennifer’s throat. “It was a noticeable lump. You could see it across the room,” he says. Jennifer told Dr. Bray that she’d had it checked out. It had been diagnosed as a benign goiter, or thyroid nodule. She and her other doctors were watching it. But on the MRI, something about the lump looked odd to Dr. Bray. He advised Jennifer to have it taken out, or at the very least biopsied again, before he would perform the second spine surgery she needed. Jennifer went away to have the goiter biopsied, and returned to Dr. Bray with the news that the thyroid experts said she could have it taken out or not. It didn’t really matter. She didn’t want to deal with it. She didn’t want to have yet another surgery. But Dr. Bray felt uneasy. “Finally, I said, ‘Jennifer, look. Just go have it taken out. It doesn’t look right. It has the wrong feel to it.’ I don’t even know what exactly was leading me to push her to have the goiter taken out, because it’s not me who does that surgery. I just said: ‘Jennifer. Go. Have. It. Taken. Out.’” It turned out there was a malignant cancer in that lump. “Had it broken out of the capsule of the thyroid…it’s a very, very bad outcome,” Dr. Bray says softly. “That type of cancer spreads very quickly through the body.” Jennifer would have died. Instead, Jennifer underwent two surgeries last December to have the cancerous thyroid removed, but did not need radiation or chemotherapy. Finally cancer-free, Jennifer returned to Dr. Bray in January 2010 for her second spine surgery at D.I.S.C. It involved drilling holes in the back of her neck to get rid of the spurs, but would free her from the chronic pain she’d been trying to ignore for so long. “I didn’t want to fuse multiple levels in her neck, because she wouldn’t have any range of motion,” Dr. Bray says. “So we fused the one that was unstable and cleaned up the other ones to get her out of pain.” “The day I came to, I felt better. I felt like my head was on straight. I knew my head hadn’t been on strait for 23 years,” Jennifer says. “It was the most optimal surgical procedure you could ever imagine. I was so impressed with Dr. Bray’s overall acumen, and I trusted him. The quality of D.I.S.C. and the nursing staff, two nurses per person, was amazing.” “The fact that Dr. Bray has such amazing follow up care at D.I.S.C. I just felt completely taken care of,” Jennifer adds. “Going for rehab at the Soft Tissue Center with Dr. Horrigan, the fact that they take care of all the Olympic athletes, getting to meet some of the Olympians and even work out with them, I felt so lucky. I just felt like I was in the most knowledgeable place with the most experienced people. D.I.S.C is the highest level of excellence.” Fully healed and feeling great, Jennifer is glad to be able to compete in another dance contest. A real one this time. “It’s the most fun thing I’ve ever done,” Jennifer says, driving home from the studio after a long day of working out on the dance floor. She has just come from fittings for her latest ballroom dance costume, a backless number that involves gold fringe with rhinestones. “It’s like a furry bathing suit dusted with tinkerbell gold,” she says, giddy. You can hear the delight in her voice, yet at the same time, Jennifer is exhausted. Who wouldn’t be? The show has put the 50-year-old actress on a brutal schedule. The dancing is non-stop. Starting at 5 a.m., seven days a week, for six hours a day, Jennifer is pushing her body to its limit – but loving it. The actress has never looked better in her life. Inside or out. “I have so much confidence in Dr. Bray that I wish he could take care of all my medical needs,” Jennifer says. “He restored to me a life I didn’t even know I was missing for 23 years.” In between rehearsals for “Dancing With the Stars” we catch D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine patient and actress Jennifer Grey for a quick check-up. Nobody puts Baby in the corner. It’s one of the great lines from Hollywood movies. When Patrick Swayze reached out his hand at the end of “Dirty Dancing” to pull a shy, pretty wallflower onto the stage with him, it touched America’s heart, and did what movies do best. It made us want to fall in love -- especially with someone who would find us when we were hiding. It made us want to dance. For the last 23 years, however, that actress, Jennifer Grey, has not been dancing. Shy of the fame the film brought her, and suffering chronic pain from a tragic car accident, America’s sweetheart banished herself to the proverbial corner. Now “Baby” is back in the spotlight, delighting audiences on ABC’s hit show “Dancing With the Stars” with her new professional partner, Derek Hough. But the truth is that Jennifer, 50, would not be waltzing around without the skill and expertise of D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center, and Dr. Robert Bray, the man Jennifer credits for saving her life. Twice. “I had been asked to do DWTS nine or ten times,” Jennifer explains. “Every year since the show first began. I never considered it.” The reasons are complicated. After “Dirty Dancing” came out in 1987, Jennifer became a big star. Everyone in the world assumed she was a dancer. She is not. Jennifer is simply an actress - without dance experience – who played a girl who was learning to dance. The role, and her brilliant performance in it, turned out to be an iconic one. The sudden (and enduring) fame made Jennifer so self-conscious in her normal life as a wife and mother that as the years passed, she grew afraid to go to exercise classes that involved any type of dance. She feared that people in the class would be watching her, expecting her to be perfect, and judging her when they saw that she was not. Jennifer stopped doing the one thing that had brought her so much joy: dancing. The other reason she kept turning down the coveted slot the producers wanted her to take on DWTS is that way back in 1987, one week before “Dirty Dancing” opened, Jennifer was on vacation in Ireland with her then-boyfriend Matthew Broderick when their car was involved in a head-on collision. The occupants of the other car were killed. Jennifer felt lucky that her life was spared. She tried to ignore the pain that followed. “I knew that I had horrible whiplash,” she says, “but it wasn’t until I was older that I realized how serious it was.” As the years passed, Jennifer turned to other forms of exercise to stay fit and healthy: yoga, Pilates and weight training, but everything she tried took a toll on her. “My neck became such an issue that I stopped working out my upper body,” she says. After Patrick Swayze’s death from pancreatic cancer last year, Jennifer remembered how fearless he was, and became inspired to take more risks. She wanted to stop hiding from life and job opportunities in her field of acting. She wanted to stop being that wallflower he’d once pulled out of a corner. The next time the producers from DWTS called, Jennifer finally said yes. She needed to pass a routine physical first. Friends referred her to Dr. Robert Bray, because she wanted to discuss her neck pain with an expert. “Basically I went to Dr. Bray, because I heard he was the best from people I respected,” Jennifer says. “He was by far the best of everybody, and his name kept coming up. When I went in for my exam, I thought Dr. Bray was going to say, “You’re fine, go have fun,’ but I was completely stunned when his response to my films was, ‘Your spinal cord is so damaged that if you slipped or fell or got rear-ended in traffic, you’d be paralyzed. Immediately.’” “When I saw Jennifer, her exam was very abnormal,” explains Dr. Bray. “When you tapped her reflexes, they were very, very jumpy, which is a sign there is something pressing on the spinal cord.” He took x-rays of her neck, with her head bending forward and back. “Her neck had a very dramatic angulation, and a slippage of one vertebrae on the other, to an extent where it was dangerous,” Dr. Bray says. “The amount of slippage that was there was actually cutting off the area where the spinal canal could run through.” He sent her for an MRI. “Jennifer’s longstanding injury had resulted in ligament laxity and instability,” Dr. Bray says. “That was resulting in a dangerous level of compromise of her spinal cord and some early damage to her spinal cord.” The spinal cord needs room to live. It’s surrounded by fluid. The hole that the spinal cord runs through, the spinal canal, needs to be about an inch wide (15 or 16 mm). If it gets below about 7 or 8 mm, the spinal cord itself has no room left to sit, or live, without fluid around it. “As little as 100 grams of pressure, just a simple touch, of pressure on the spinal cord at that level can damage it permanently,” says Dr. Bray. “Jennifer had compromised her canal so severely that there was no fluid around the spinal cord. None. It was already starting to do damage, the joint was unstable or slipping,” Dr. Bray says. “That means a fall, a sudden head movement, a minor rear-end accident, a slip on the dance floor, and she’d be paralyzed. It really was that bad.” “We didn’t give her any options,” Dr. Bray admits. “She was told no. No, she cannot dance. No, she cannot do any type of workout. No, she cannot play any sports.” He adds, “Frankly, I told her she probably shouldn’t be driving around.” Jennifer needed to have neck surgery. “She couldn’t look up to kiss her husband good-night,” Dr. Bray adds. “She could not raise her head, because her head was aimed at the ground. I had to sit down so she could talk to me. She couldn’t actually look up to see me. Her head wouldn’t go up.” (Dr. Bray stands 6’5”. Jennifer Grey is 5’3”.) The position that Jennifer took in the Viennese waltz on the first night of competition, with her head inclined gracefully back in her partner’s arms, would not have been possible for Jennifer to do just a few months ago, Dr. Bray says. “Her head was falling off, forwards, because of this joint that was unstable.” “I was so frightened by the prospect of spinal surgery,” Jennifer admits. “Just the fact that I knew he was the best. I knew I’d be in the greatest hands.” “The first operation she needed was to put her head back into position and lock this joint in place that was grossly unstable and frankly dangerous,” Dr. Bray explains. Dr. Bray performed an anterior fusion through the front of her neck to put Jennifer’s neck back into alignment. “We took out the disc completely, lifted the neck up and put it back over where it belongs. This reduced the angulation and instability. Then we put in a titanium plate,” Dr. Bray says, “Which was actually one of my own plates, an RSB plate that I designed and put through the FDA. It locked that joint back into position.” The surgery worked beautifully. “It changed the angle of her head over 20 degrees,” Dr. Bray says, and got Jennifer out of danger. Unfortunately, that wasn’t all the surgery the actress needed to have. As a result of the long-term effects of trauma caused by the old car accident, Jennifer had what Dr. Bray calls “accelerated life wear and tear” at other levels, which caused her shoulder pain and arm pain. Dr. Bray needed to operate on Jennifer a second time to remove spurs from her neck that were causing her that pain. But before he did that, Dr. Bray noticed a strange lump on Jennifer’s throat. “It was a noticeable lump. You could see it across the room,” he says. Jennifer told Dr. Bray that she’d had it checked out. It had been diagnosed as a benign goiter, or thyroid nodule. She and her other doctors were watching it. But on the MRI, something about the lump looked odd to Dr. Bray. He advised Jennifer to have it taken out, or at the very least biopsied again, before he would perform the second spine surgery she needed. Jennifer went away to have the goiter biopsied, and returned to Dr. Bray with the news that the thyroid experts said she could have it taken out or not. It didn’t really matter. She didn’t want to deal with it. She didn’t want to have yet another surgery. But Dr. Bray felt uneasy. “Finally, I said, ‘Jennifer, look. Just go have it taken out. It doesn’t look right. It has the wrong feel to it.’ I don’t even know what exactly was leading me to push her to have the goiter taken out, because it’s not me who does that surgery. I just said: ‘Jennifer. Go. Have. It. Taken. Out.’” It turned out there was a malignant cancer in that lump. “Had it broken out of the capsule of the thyroid…it’s a very, very bad outcome,” Dr. Bray says softly. “That type of cancer spreads very quickly through the body.” Jennifer would have died. Instead, Jennifer underwent two surgeries last December to have the cancerous thyroid removed, but did not need radiation or chemotherapy. Finally cancer-free, Jennifer returned to Dr. Bray in January 2010 for her second spine surgery at D.I.S.C. It involved drilling holes in the back of her neck to get rid of the spurs, but would free her from the chronic pain she’d been trying to ignore for so long. “I didn’t want to fuse multiple levels in her neck, because she wouldn’t have any range of motion,” Dr. Bray says. “So we fused the one that was unstable and cleaned up the other ones to get her out of pain.” “The day I came to, I felt better. I felt like my head was on straight. I knew my head hadn’t been on strait for 23 years,” Jennifer says. “It was the most optimal surgical procedure you could ever imagine. I was so impressed with Dr. Bray’s overall acumen, and I trusted him. The quality of D.I.S.C. and the nursing staff, two nurses per person, was amazing.” “The fact that Dr. Bray has such amazing follow up care at D.I.S.C. I just felt completely taken care of,” Jennifer adds. “Going for rehab at the Soft Tissue Center with Dr. Horrigan, the fact that they take care of all the Olympic athletes, getting to meet some of the Olympians and even work out with them, I felt so lucky. I just felt like I was in the most knowledgeable place with the most experienced people. D.I.S.C is the highest level of excellence.” Fully healed and feeling great, Jennifer is glad to be able to compete in another dance contest. A real one this time. “It’s the most fun thing I’ve ever done,” Jennifer says, driving home from the studio after a long day of working out on the dance floor. She has just come from fittings for her latest ballroom dance costume, a backless number that involves gold fringe with rhinestones. “It’s like a furry bathing suit dusted with tinkerbell gold,” she says, giddy. You can hear the delight in her voice, yet at the same time, Jennifer is exhausted. Who wouldn’t be? The show has put the 50-year-old actress on a brutal schedule. The dancing is non-stop. Starting at 5 a.m., seven days a week, for six hours a day, Jennifer is pushing her body to its limit – but loving it. The actress has never looked better in her life. Inside or out. “I have so much confidence in Dr. Bray that I wish he could take care of all my medical needs,” Jennifer says. “He restored to me a life I didn’t even know I was missing for 23 years.”

Ryan Wilson: Hurdling to Greatness

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:10:40 GMT

Just having good health care has made all the difference for Track and Field star Ryan Wilson. He’s breaking out this season—coming closer to breaking the world record every day.

He Won’t Let Anything Stand in His Way of Winning

Ryan Wilson, in a word, is fast. At age 29, he runs the 110-meter hurdles, faster than almost anyone else on earth. Ryan started coming to D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center in February 2010 when his standings qualified him for the U.S. Olympic Committee medical program. He was excited about the prospect of a facility that provides a cohesive medical plan for his sports-related health care. As a result of his work with Dr. James Wang, Dr. Michael Gervais and the Soft Tissue Center, Ryan is competing uninjured for the first time in his career. “Track is unlike other sports in that when we compete, we have to take care of our bodies constantly,” Ryan says. “What might be a little ache or pain for someone else might have large ramifications for us on the track. We can’t come back from injury fast.” Hurdlers, it has been said, are sprinters with a problem. The problem, of course, is the ten, 42-inch-high barriers that stand between the start and the finish lines. “It’s easy to just run,” Ryan says, relaxing after a session with Dr. Joseph Horrigan in the Soft Tissue Center. “Try going over hurdles. We’ll see how many people come out of that alive.” He grins, but underneath that laid-back humor, he’s dead serious. Hurdles can be punishing. Not only is there the danger of tripping and falling, Ryan says it’s pretty common to smack the hurdle with your trail leg or your shin. He props his foot on a coffee table and pulls up his pant leg to bang on his tibia. “I don’t feel it anymore,” he says, laughing. “You’re consistently taking your body to its physical limits in practice when you’re training really hard. You have to do that with running.” There’s no World Championship for Track and Field this season. It’s an off year, but hurdlers never take a year off. When a win can be determined by a split second (Runners in 1st through 5th place are often separated by one 600th of a second!) it’s crucial to never stop racing. Plus, without the pressure of a world championship on him, Ryan can focus on breaking that world record, which is exactly what he is attempting to do this summer, jetting off to England, Switzerland, Croatia, Germany and Italy. So far this season Ryan has made a huge impact on the European Circuit with consistent 2nd place finishes at the top Diamond League meets. When he’s not flying all over the world to compete, Ryan makes his home in Los Angeles, where he can be found training with his coach Darrell Smith or taking good care of himself at D.I.S.C. When you’re a professional athlete, especially one who hasn’t landed a corporate sponsor yet, “going for the gold” doesn’t always mean collecting medals to wear around your neck. Winning races means being able to pay the bills back at home. Ryan banks on his body to be in perfect condition every day. “Hurdling is really an unusual sport in that you always have a lead leg and a trail leg in the 110-meters, and it never changes,” says Dr. Horrigan, who has been working closely with athletes and their coaches for 20 years. “So there’s this very unusual level of stress and torque on the body.” Imagine a tachometer that clocks RPMs on a car. Elite athletes are exceeding the red line, just revving all the time. As a result, they’re sustaining injuries all the time. When Ryan first came to D.I.S.C. he was experiencing pain on the ball of his big toe – or – sesamoiditis. After careful study of Ryan’s MRIs from MINK Radiology, “We got him into some good strapping and pads, which took the pressure off,” says Dr. Wang. “He was still able to run and train pain-free.” At the Soft Tissue Center, Dr. Horrigan and his team made sure Ryan’s treatments didn’t rub him out of competition. The fatigue factor following a session can be high, especially for athletes of Ryan’s caliber. But Dr. Horrigan has developed a different strategy. “You have to be very guarded in the pressure and the number of passes you make, every time your thumb or finger goes over a muscle, because it has a very significant impact,” Dr. Horrigan says, cautioning against treatments that are too aggressive. “I teach young doctors that you can’t use pressure as your guide. It has to be precision and specificity of the applied treatment to the soft tissue.” “At first I was a bit skeptical,” Ryan confesses. Dr. Horrigan’s treatments felt a bit light to him. “But then I noticed at practice that I was fresher. My body felt good. I trusted Dr. Horrigan to do the right thing and it paid off.” “This is the best year. The last two years I’ve had injuries, but I feel better this year than I have. I think it’s at least 80%…could be 90%… could be 98% because of D.I.S.C,” Ryan says. “I’m running fast because of my family, because of my coach, because of D.I.S.C. It’s all a team.” As he looks ahead to the World Championships in South Korea in 2011 and the 2012 Olympics in London, Ryan is confident. “My goal is to win. I like to win. I’m patiently confident. Having D.I.S.C. on my team gives me an exciting sense of security about performing at my peak.”

About Ryan Wilson:

Ryan Wilson, who hails from Ohio, has been jumping over hurdles since he was about five years old. Both his mother and father were track coaches, so he literally grew up on the field. He moved to California to attend USC, where he was named a three-time All-American. He graduated in 2003 with a degree in Fine Arts (Sculpture and Ceramics), and that same year became the NCAA National Champion. He was also named the Pac-10 Men’s Track and Field Athlete of the Year. Unfortunately for a lot of athletes, particularly those in individual sports, once they leave the college system behind, they lose the security of having unlimited access to health care. Inconceivably, some go through periods of having no medical coverage at all. This is the first time in Ryan’s professional career that has received on-going medical care. Just having good health care has made all the difference for Track and Field star Ryan Wilson. He’s breaking out this season—coming closer to breaking the world record every day. He Won’t Let Anything Stand in His Way of Winning Ryan Wilson, in a word, is fast. At age 29, he runs the 110-meter hurdles, faster than almost anyone else on earth. Ryan started coming to D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center in February 2010 when his standings qualified him for the U.S. Olympic Committee medical program. He was excited about the prospect of a facility that provides a cohesive medical plan for his sports-related health care. As a result of his work with Dr. James Wang, Dr. Michael Gervais and the Soft Tissue Center, Ryan is competing uninjured for the first time in his career. “Track is unlike other sports in that when we compete, we have to take care of our bodies constantly,” Ryan says. “What might be a little ache or pain for someone else might have large ramifications for us on the track. We can’t come back from injury fast.” Hurdlers, it has been said, are sprinters with a problem. The problem, of course, is the ten, 42-inch-high barriers that stand between the start and the finish lines. “It’s easy to just run,” Ryan says, relaxing after a session with Dr. Joseph Horrigan in the Soft Tissue Center. “Try going over hurdles. We’ll see how many people come out of that alive.” He grins, but underneath that laid-back humor, he’s dead serious. Hurdles can be punishing. Not only is there the danger of tripping and falling, Ryan says it’s pretty common to smack the hurdle with your trail leg or your shin. He props his foot on a coffee table and pulls up his pant leg to bang on his tibia. “I don’t feel it anymore,” he says, laughing. “You’re consistently taking your body to its physical limits in practice when you’re training really hard. You have to do that with running.” There’s no World Championship for Track and Field this season. It’s an off year, but hurdlers never take a year off. When a win can be determined by a split second (Runners in 1st through 5th place are often separated by one 600th of a second!) it’s crucial to never stop racing. Plus, without the pressure of a world championship on him, Ryan can focus on breaking that world record, which is exactly what he is attempting to do this summer, jetting off to England, Switzerland, Croatia, Germany and Italy. So far this season Ryan has made a huge impact on the European Circuit with consistent 2nd place finishes at the top Diamond League meets. When he’s not flying all over the world to compete, Ryan makes his home in Los Angeles, where he can be found training with his coach Darrell Smith or taking good care of himself at D.I.S.C. When you’re a professional athlete, especially one who hasn’t landed a corporate sponsor yet, “going for the gold” doesn’t always mean collecting medals to wear around your neck. Winning races means being able to pay the bills back at home. Ryan banks on his body to be in perfect condition every day. “Hurdling is really an unusual sport in that you always have a lead leg and a trail leg in the 110-meters, and it never changes,” says Dr. Horrigan, who has been working closely with athletes and their coaches for 20 years. “So there’s this very unusual level of stress and torque on the body.” Imagine a tachometer that clocks RPMs on a car. Elite athletes are exceeding the red line, just revving all the time. As a result, they’re sustaining injuries all the time. When Ryan first came to D.I.S.C. he was experiencing pain on the ball of his big toe – or – sesamoiditis. After careful study of Ryan’s MRIs from MINK Radiology, “We got him into some good strapping and pads, which took the pressure off,” says Dr. Wang. “He was still able to run and train pain-free.” At the Soft Tissue Center, Dr. Horrigan and his team made sure Ryan’s treatments didn’t rub him out of competition. The fatigue factor following a session can be high, especially for athletes of Ryan’s caliber. But Dr. Horrigan has developed a different strategy. “You have to be very guarded in the pressure and the number of passes you make, every time your thumb or finger goes over a muscle, because it has a very significant impact,” Dr. Horrigan says, cautioning against treatments that are too aggressive. “I teach young doctors that you can’t use pressure as your guide. It has to be precision and specificity of the applied treatment to the soft tissue.” “At first I was a bit skeptical,” Ryan confesses. Dr. Horrigan’s treatments felt a bit light to him. “But then I noticed at practice that I was fresher. My body felt good. I trusted Dr. Horrigan to do the right thing and it paid off.” “This is the best year. The last two years I’ve had injuries, but I feel better this year than I have. I think it’s at least 80%…could be 90%… could be 98% because of D.I.S.C,” Ryan says. “I’m running fast because of my family, because of my coach, because of D.I.S.C. It’s all a team.” As he looks ahead to the World Championships in South Korea in 2011 and the 2012 Olympics in London, Ryan is confident. “My goal is to win. I like to win. I’m patiently confident. Having D.I.S.C. on my team gives me an exciting sense of security about performing at my peak.” About Ryan Wilson: Ryan Wilson, who hails from Ohio, has been jumping over hurdles since he was about five years old. Both his mother and father were track coaches, so he literally grew up on the field. He moved to California to attend USC, where he was named a three-time All-American. He graduated in 2003 with a degree in Fine Arts (Sculpture and Ceramics), and that same year became the NCAA National Champion. He was also named the Pac-10 Men’s Track and Field Athlete of the Year. Unfortunately for a lot of athletes, particularly those in individual sports, once they leave the college system behind, they lose the security of having unlimited access to health care. Inconceivably, some go through periods of having no medical coverage at all. This is the first time in Ryan’s professional career that has received on-going medical care.

Three-Time Olympian Tony Benshoof Has Successful Microdisectomy Performed by Dr. Robert S. Bray, Jr.

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:12:00 GMT

The most successful men’s luge athlete in U.S. history, Tony Benshoof, will undergo spinal surgery for the second time in 15 months to correct a re-ruptured disk and a newly torn disk. Dr. Robert Bray of the D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center in Marina del Rey, Calif. will operate on the three-time Olympian using a minimally invasive procedure on March 30. The L5/S1 disk, which was repaired on December 28, 2008, has been re-ruptured. A fragment approximately one centimeter in diameter is pushing out of the lower disk and pinching the nerves in Benshoof’s back. The L4/L5 disk has a tear but has not yet ruptured. Dr. Bray will remove the fragment from the White Bear Lake Minn. native’s spine and repair the hole caused by the bulging disk. At the same time, he will also repair the tear in L4/L5 disk and sew it shut before it becomes a rupture. "Both of those (procedures) can be done with a micro-surgery, which will be just a several inch hole and a teaspoon of blood loss," said Dr. Bray, who met Benshoof while working as the U.S. Olympic Team physician at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. "He’ll be up walking around the same day (the procedure) is done and we’re going to get him up moving very quickly." Approximately one month after surgery, Dr. Bray’s team will begin a "very serious" rehab program with Benshoof, to include biomechanical analysis along with an assessment of strengths and weaknesses with the goal of increasing strength and flexibility. Benshoof will hold off on making any decisions regarding his future in luge until after Dr. Bray performs the surgery. "I’d like to have my strength and mobility back," said Benshoof, winner of 37 international medals. "Once the surgery is complete, I will play it by ear from there. If everything goes well, I’ll get back on the sled."

LA Kings and D.I.S.C. Sailboat Christened Slapshot and Set Sail on Her Maiden Voyage the First Ever NHL Themed Boat

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:54:11 GMT

Marina del Rey, CALIF. –(March 29, 2010) -- The Los Angeles King and D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center will set sail in a cross promotion for the upcoming spring and summer with a custom-designed Open 6.50 sail boat that was officially christened today “Slap Shot.” On hand for the celebration were Luc Robitaille, president of business operations for the Kings, Bailey, the Kings Mascot and Dr. Robert S. Bray, Jr., the CEO and founding director of D.I.S.C., the official medical center partner of the Kings. “This has been a very exciting year for the Kings,” Robitaille said. “We have made a concerted effort to expand awareness of the brand through a variety of non-traditional avenues. Now, thanks to our great relationship with D.I.S.C. and Dr. Bray, we will be seen by land, air and sea, a true marketing hat trick.” The 6.50 sail boat is part of a boat series from Open Sailing USA and is valued in excess of $100,000. The “Slap Shot” was custom-designed with the color schemes of the Kings, which includes purple, silver, white and black with a purple sail displaying logos of both the Kings and D.I.S.C. “As the Kings set sail for the playoffs and our strong relationship with the team, D.I.S.C. is proud to keep the momentum going through spring and summer,” said Dr. Bray. “From the frozen ice to the Pacific Ocean, this is a novel approach to expand the visibility of both organizations throughout Southern California.” “Slap Shot” will be officially unveiled to the fans outside of STAPLES Center on Thursday, April 8 beginning at 5:30 p.m. with a whole host of activities prior to the Kings-Phoenix Coyotes game which begins at 7:30 p.m. Among the activities will be the Kings Ice Rider, members of the Kings Ice Crew, music, a scholarship presentation to the winner of the Boys & Girls Club recipient Miracle Evans, the 2010 Youth of the Year by Dr. Bray and Luc Robitaille along with other event surprises. The festivities will take place at the 11th and Georgia Street entrance. About the L.A. Kings For all Kings information, visit LAKings.com or call 1.888.KINGS.LA

Dr. Gary Brazina to Have Original Artwork Displayed at AAOS Meeting as part of Wounded in Action Art Exhibit

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:06:17 GMT

Marina del Rey, Calif. (March 3, 2010) -- Board certified orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Gary Brazina, will have his "Tree of Life" scupture featured in the "Wounded in Action: An Art Exhibition" at the the annual meeting of the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons in New Orleans March 9 - 13. "I feel indebted not only to the Vietnam veterans who fought while I was in college, but also to all the soldiers, medics and surgeons who have served our country," Dr. Brazina said. "Their work on the battlefield improved the techniques for treating extremity wounds back at home. The sacrifices these men and women made while in the service earned and continues to earn, and deserve, my undying respect and gratitude. I wanted to say ‘thank you’ to our soldiers through my art." Dr. Brazina has submitted his Tree of Life metal sculpture that measures 72 x 36 x 36 inches. Inspired by a biblical proverb, Dr. Brazina created a ”Tree of Life” to illustrate his deep feelings about the sacrifices soldiers, medics and surgeons must make in times of war. One half of the steel sculpture represents a living tree – in bloom and full of life, suggestive of those who benefit from the military’s efforts. The other half of the sculpture is a barren and stunted branch, which has been draped with a flag and helmet to represent young soldiers whose lives have been cut short or who have suffered severe injuries. The prosthetic leg underneath the stunted tree serves as a visceral reminder of the true horror of war wounds. ”It drives home that war is real and real people suffer," he said. Organized as a tribute to injured troops, their families, and the civilians, medical staff, and orthopaedic surgeons who cared for them, the exhibition thoughtfully considers the sacrifices made in war. The show includes artwork created by 30 orthopaedic surgeons, as well as 70 other artists, in response to the painful, personal, and inspiring stories of those injured in combat. Orthopaedic surgeon artists will donate proceeds through OREF, a group of orthopaedic surgeon artists participating in the 2010 Wounded in Action: An Art Exhibition of Orthopaedic Advancements will donate proceeds from the sale of their art to support AAOS educational initiatives through the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation (OREF). More information is available by visiting the website www.wondedinactionart.org Having spent his career at the forefront of his field, Dr. Gary Brazina is dedicated to providing his patients with the best quality care, the newest surgical techniques, and the latest protocols in conservative care. First and foremost, his emphasis is always on the patients’ individual and specific needs. His specialties lie in arthroscopic surgery and sports medicine. Dr. Brazina is a Fellow in both the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery and the American College of Surgeons.

Daily Health Tip #55

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

If you want to lose weight, you will have more success if you weigh daily. Because of fluctuations during the day, the best way to monitor your progress is to weigh right after you wake up and go to the bathroom. Knowing your bodyweight each day makes it easier to avoid temptation.

Daily Health Tip #54

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Snack well. Bring nuts, fruit, or a protein drink to work. Again save your body and your pocket book.

Daily Health Tip #53

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

If you want to be happy, smile more, laugh more, give more.

Daily Health Tip #52

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Find the right time - do exercise at a consistent time when you are not as likely to have scheduling conflicts; early in the morning may be better than late at night when your are tired.

Daily Health Tip #51

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

If you could invest in one aspect of your life that could significantly increase your performance (in life, sport, business) how much would you pay for it? What if it was free? It’s pretty clear, according to most Olympians, that proper and consistent sleep is critical (but not sufficient :) to being a world class performer.

Daily Health Tip #50

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Breath. Relax. You might not realize it, but we tend to hold our breath during stress and of course this is a bad thing. Think about your breathing patterns. Happy thoughts are best!

Daily Health Tip #49

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

There very few things that are 100% permanent and fixed. Death is one of them, though. Most things require adjustment. Maybe it’d be useful to train to be a world class performer at being flexible with the challenges of the world.

Daily Health Tip #48

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Fish oil should always be taken with food. If you experience an aftertaste or they repeat, take at the onset of your meal. If you still have a fishy taste, store bottle in the freezer and take them frozen.

Daily Health Tip #47

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Be patient! Results take place after months of dedication and discipline.

Daily Health Tip #46

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

There is a purpose for fear. It scares me too. Be aware of the thoughts that trigger this emotion. You might want to re-engineer some of those thoughts.

Daily Health Tip #45

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

If you are on the phone a lot , get a headset. It will save years of pain down the road

Daily Health Tip #44

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Many people think that to be a world class performer, you have to be overly serious in life (and may end up missing out on the “fun”). Our experience has not supported this notion. Elite performers know how to be very focused when required, and they certainly know how to have fun. One of the key differences is that most of the best-in-the-world have a passion to figure out how good they can be at one (or two) performance skills — and they train tirelessly in this search.

Daily Health Tip #43

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Set realistic goals! Don’t set your expectations to high or you are setting yourself up for failure! For example, losing one pound per week is actually a healthy way to lose weight.

Daily Health Tip #42

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

If you’re interested in increasing your level of performance, it’s important to have a clear understanding of your mental strengths and weaknesses. This information provides a framework to create training opportunities to test the consistency of your strengths, as well as your weaknesses.

Daily Health Tip #41

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

When people get sick, injured or are under excessive stress, they often stop taking their vitamins at a time when they need them the most.

Daily Health Tip #40

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Continue to drink water all day long. It will chase away dehydration, which is the biggest problem for highs and lows during the day. A glass of water will also help sore joints to depression.

Daily Health Tip #39

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Exercise with a friend when possible as you are more likely t do things when someone else is depending on you.

Dr. Robert S. Bray, Jr. to be Only LA-Based Physician on USOC Medical Staff for Upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:26:12 GMT

Marina del Rey, Calif. (Feb 3, 2010) – Preeminent neurological spine surgeon Dr. Robert S. Bray, Jr., the CEO and founding director of D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center, an Official Medical Services Provider to the U.S. Olympic Team, will be the only LA-based physician to join a the 47-member medical staff that will support the 200-plus Team USA Athletes at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada. The partnership between D.I.S.C. and the U.S.O.C. was announced on November 9, 2009. “This is a wonderful opportunity to further my involvement with the USOC and the Team USA Athletes in support of their medical care during the Winter Games,” said Dr. Bray. “My number one priority is to the athletes, keeping them healthy during the games and attending to their needs. This experience will also provide invaluable insight into the overall structure of the care for U.S. Olympic Athletes as we build this next generation of sports medicine to ensure our American athletes have every possible resource available for them to live their dreams.” This partnership will allow Team USA athletes to have access to a wide-array of distinguished sports medicine specialists at D.I.S.C. who can provide wide-ranging care, in a coordinated manner. This unique multi-disciplinary model will ensure their medical needs are being met appropriately, allowing them to perform on the highest possible level. In addition to routine medical care, Dr. Bray’s expertise in neurological spine surgery will make him an invaluable member of the medical team. Dr. Bray will serve as the head team doctor for luge, bobsled and skeleton and will provide support for the alpine sports. For nearly 30 years Dr. Robert S. Bray Jr. has been at the forefront of the innovations taking place in minimally invasive spine surgery. He has performed more than 10,000 procedures. Approximately 95% of his surgical cases are performed on an outpatient basis, while the national average is 5-10%. Among the first neurosurgeons in the country to dedicate his practice to spine surgery, he has trained 27 fellows, published many peer-reviewed articles and has numerous patents to his credits for instrumentation and devices that have been essential to the advances in this highly-specialized field. He is credited with the recent discovery T.E.A.M. Disease (thoracic epidural arteriovenous malformation), a rare spinal abnormality that primarily affects young women. Outpatient Surgery Magazine calls him "one of the world's foremost neurological spinal surgeons" and OR Manager Magazine refers to D.I.S.C. as "an advanced spine center other surgeons would envy."

Daily Health Tip #38

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

There’s no real magic formula for becoming a world class performer (whether that be in sport, business, or in life). A common thread that pulls across most “success” stories is that, they had a vision and they relentlessly conditioned themselves in mind, brain, body, and spirit to be able to capture the opportunity when it presented itself.

Daily Health Tip #37

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Do exercise at home - you don’t have to go into a gym everyday; go to the gym when you can and do a shortened program on busier days by focusing on specific stretches at home - doing exercise everyday is the key.

Daily Health Tip #36

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Ever wonder how “they” make it look so easy? One reason for smooth performance, during “big” moments,” is that “they’ve” been “there” many times before (with intense practice and through intense imagery).

Sleep And High Performance: What Olympic Athletes Know About Sleep

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:54:56 GMT

Olympic athletes (and coaches) are well aware of the importance of sleep as it relates to high performance. Most of us would agree that elite athletes are required to consistently perform in very demanding environments. But wait, isn't that true for just about all of us who are interested in "high performance" in life - for those of us who are pursuing a life that is the very best possible - whether that be with business endeavors, home life, and / or spiritual connectedness? For U.S. Olympic team athletes, the difference between a personal-best-performance at the Olympic Games and a disappointing performance can be determined by fractions of a second. Athletes tend to easily understand the link between quality sleep and optimal performance - and most agree that quality sleep is fundamental to consistently performing at a very high level. If quality sleep is considered "fundamental" to high performance - how are you doing in this department? After all, all of us are performing in some aspect of our lives. It's probably important to start with the question: Is high-performance in life important to you? If you're interested in living a dynamic and optimal life (however you define that), then this article might be of interest to you. Let's learn what athletes, coaches, and other high performers know about sleep and performance. Researcher Cheri Mah of the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory has studied the effects of sleep and athletic performance. Mah noted that sleep is a "significant factor in achieving peak athletic performance." Mah continued that many athletes accumulate a large sleep debt by not obtaining their required nightly sleep, which can have negative effects on cognitive functioning, mood, and reaction time. Not surprisingly though, Mah's suggested that the "negative effects can be minimized or eliminated by prioritizing sleep in general and, more specifically, obtaining extra sleep to reduce one's sleep debt." Sounds pretty simple, right? If you're noticing that you're just a bit less sharp (mentally) and your mood and reaction time are off, then sleep debt could be the culprit. In which, getting more sleep could be a key to unlock increased performance in your life (sport). Right? It's not that simple though - a recent study by Cohen, et al. (2010) found that the residual effects of chronic sleep loss are not made-up with a good night of "extra" sleep, especially for performances that occurred the following evening. In other words, after we get some good quality sleep (after the night of sleep loss), we feel fresh during that day, but by the next evening, we are still "off." And if the sleep-debt cycle repeats itself, we're likely to really have subsequent performance challenges. So what does this all mean to you? We're pretty clear that performance deteriorates with a lack of sleep. In fact, according to those who study the potential life-and-death effects of sleep and human performance, the US military's MITRE corporation (Williams et al., 2008) noted that "the most immediate human performance factor in military effectiveness is degradation of performance under stressful conditions, particularly sleep deprivation." We also know that quality sleep can aid in human performance - but we really have very little understanding of why sleep is so important, and more specifically what sleep actually does. But we don't need a bunch of research to tell us what sleep actually does, or the fact that we're often "off" when we don't get enough sleep. We just know that it's important. It's not rocket science. That being said, here are a few very simple sleep strategies that elite athletes and coaches use to improve performance (in sport and for life): 1) Allow for pre-sleep readiness. Most great athletes talk about the advantages that come with pre-performance routines - the activities that help prepare your mind and body to perform optimally. Create a pre-sleep routine where you allow yourself to be prepared for sleep. It's so much tougher to fall asleep when you head hits the pillow and your still mentally wide-awake. Ease into the sleep process. 2) Be consistent with your sleep patterns. The best-in-the-world performers can consistently perform at a high level. The key here is consistency. Explore the number of hours of sleep that help you perform optimally. Build in enough time in your day (and evening) to ensure enough time to ease into your sleep preparation mode, as well as, to get your ideal hours of sleep. Be consistent. Be diligent. 3) Clear your mind. Keep a small "to-do" journal next to your bed. In the event that, as soon as you lay down, your mind "turns-on" with "to-do's", jot 'em down - clear your mind. It's amazing how simple this is, and how well it works. 4) Account for jet-lag. As a rule, traveling east has more pronounced and lasting jet-lag effects. Youth and well-conditioned people have less negative effects than older, sedentary adults. Air travel is also known to dehydrate the body (which can also impact sleep). Build in hydration and jet-lag recovery strategies when travel is likely to impact the quality of your sleep. There are actually many additional "tips" on how to improve sleep (see articles on "sleep hygiene" ... and it's important to know the difference between poor sleep "habits" and a more serious sleep disorder (see articles on "sleep disorders"). The strategies that we recommend require a particular amount of discipline to generate your desired outcome of improved sleep and subsequent improved performance. Best success on your journey. An industry visionary, Dr. Michael Gervais develops systems and strategies for improving human performance for individuals and organizations. Dr. Gervais, is the director of the Pinnacle Performance Center at D.I.S.C. and is a licensed psychologist in California with a specialization in high performance. In this role, he provides performers the essential skills to “thrive under pressure.” Throughout the past 10 years, Dr. Gervais has consulted with numerous NHL, NBA, NFL, UFC, MLS, AVP, Mixed Martial Arts fighters, Olympians, collegiate athletes, and military personnel.

Daily Health Tip #35

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

If someone tells you two workouts a week isn’t enough, ask them if 100 extra workouts a year can make a difference.

Healthy Driving Makes for a Healthy Neck and Back

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:17:25 GMT

The car can be our best friend or worst enemy, depending on your mental outlook. Back, neck, shoulder, arms and hips are all challenged on a simple car drive. To avoid pain and the number one priority when getting in the car is to see if you are lined up properly with the steering wheel and gas pedal. This alone will help relieve stress in the entire body. Make sure your head is in a comfortable position and shoulders are relaxed. Your seat should be close enough to the gas pedal, so there is no odd extending of the hips and legs. Too much extension can lead to back and leg pain. Sciatica pain can form from twisted angles and tight hamstrings and glutes. Keep your hands in a comfortable position and be aware of your grip. In crazy traffic you will notice “white knuckles.” That comes from gripping the steering wheel so tight that it leads to sore hands, forearms, shoulders, all the way up to the neck. Make a mental note or write a big note to yourself…relax your grip!!! This simple task will reduce driving stress in half. Studies have shown that your blood pressure can go up strongly, when you squeeze your hands to tight. If you are driving an older car, check your seat for proper lower back support. If you can place your hand comfortably behind your lower back while in seated position, you need to add a lower back support. You can go to your doctor or back store and pick up a premade lower back support or just roll up a towel and place it behind your lower back. This will encourage you to sit up straighter and allow your spine to do its job. No slouching, this is terrible for your back but it also limits blood supply to the entire body and the brain. If you are stuck in traffic, do some isometric exercises. For the neck, extend your head against the head rest, gently push against the headrest and hold for 5 to 15 seconds. Middle back, place your hands low on the steering wheel, raise your chest up and flex backwards. Lower back, flex your hamstrings and glutes, hold and relax. Try to breathe through the stress of driving. Make a game of how you can get home in one piece…then park your car in the garage and walk everywhere you can.

Daily Health Tip #34

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Weight training is a better way to shape and tone rather than aerobics or dieting alone.

Daily Health Tip #33

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Spend time recovering from the ‘busyness” of life. Your mind and body perform at the optimal level when given proper rest. When you are better recovered, you’re more likely to have the mental discipline to adjust to challenges.

Daily Health Tip #32

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Be consistent! Exercise everyday is the only way to achieve desired results.

Daily Health Tip #31

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Talent is important, but seriously overrated. There is no real “secret” for world class experts — they have simply challenged themselves, over a longer period of time, than most of the rest of the world. If you want to increase your level of performance (whatever that is), dig deep, and challenge yourself on a regular basis.

Dr. John T. Knight Specializes in Stitchless Endoscopic Carpal Tunnel Release for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:41:59 GMT

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome affects nearly 2.5 million people each year. It is caused by a combination of factors that increase pressure on the median nerve and tendons in the carpal tunnel located in the wrist. In recent years, there has been an increase in CTS primarily as a result of repetitive wrist movements most often associated with computer usage. While the vast majority of CTS cases are treated conservatively with splints, rest and medications, patients with severe pain that hinders daily activities now have the option for a 10-minute outpatient procedure that is done endoscopically and does not require any stitches. Rather than the traditional open procedure, stitchless endoscopic carpal tunnel release is very beneficial for the patient as it reduces surgical pain, provides for a quicker return to work within days and resumption of light activities most often in a matter of a week, rather than the months needed for recuperation previously associated with a more traditional “open procedure” and looks better cosmetically.

Daily Health Tip #30

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

When you sustain an injury, starting an exercise program when you are too sore to go to work is a mistake. Wait until you’re better and then start. Don’t revert to the ‘no pain-no time to train’ mentality. (You know, the one you had before you were temporality scared into contemplating action by the pain.)

Daily Health Tip #29

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Dress for success, but be aware of proper shoes. Designers are now making shoes that are for people on their feet all day. Stress starts from the ground up. Good shoes , healthy spine.

Congratulations Drs. Nicola, Millstein and Vlachos: Super Doctors 2010

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:11:26 GMT

Los Angeles Magazine has named the 2010 Super Doctors of the Year and D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center is proud to announce that three physicians were chosen for this honor. Doctors on the list are selected by their peers. Ballots are sent to thousands of doctors in Southern California asking, “If you needed medical care, which doctor would you choose?” Nominees are grouped into more than 30 medical practice areas, and those with the highest point totals from each practice area are invited to serve on a blue ribbon panel. Panelists then review and score the nominees for their primary practice area.The list features the top 5 percent of doctors in Los Angeles and Orange counties. It appeared in the January 2010 issue of the magazine. ORTHOPAEDICS Dr. Frederic Nicola is a Johns Hopkins Fellowship trained physician who is an experienced surgeon specializing in the fields of orthopedic surgery and sports medicine. His expertise in disorders of the knee joint and in advanced techniques for cartilage preservation using minimally invasive and FDA approved techniques is unsurpassed. Having served as team physician for the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders since 1983, Dr. Nicola still actively maintains that role for the Raiders, performing game-day, training camp, and NFL Combine duties. As a member of the National Football League Team Physician Society, Dr. Nicola has worked as team physician during two Super Bowls and two Pro Bowls. He is also an experienced Ringside Boxing Physician for the California State Athletic Commission. With more than 20 years of treating some of the top athletes in the nation, Dr. Nicola’s experience Read More Dr. Eric Millstein is a board certified orthopedic surgeon specializing in advanced arthroscopic techniques for sports injuries of the knee, hip and shoulder. A Magna Cum Laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he was also a Ben Franklin Scholar and was named to the Dean’s List for three consecutive years. He remained at the University to obtain his medical degree and received the George Marshall Award for Academic Excellence. During his medical training he attended the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago for an externship in spinal cord injury and pediatric rehabilitation. He completed his general surgery internship and residency at the University of Chicago Hospitals. He continued his advanced training with an orthopedic fellowship in sports medicine and arthroscopy at the Southern California Orthopedic Institute. Dr. Millstein is fluent in Spanish and also does volunteer work with a suicide prevention program. PHYSICAL MEDICINE AND REHABILITATION Dr. Katrina M. Vlachos is a board certified doctor of physical medicine and rehabilitation who specializes in preventative orthopedic health and rehabilitation. She focuses on a conservative, non-surgical treatment of orthopedic and neurological disorders with an emphasis on exercise-based approaches. In addition, she offers patients who suffer from chronic tendonitis and other musculoskeletal injuries the treatment of PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy) that use platelets, which are naturally found in blood, to help speed up tissue healing. Dr. Vlachos also employs alternative techniques and medications to restore function and improve quality of life. She has over 10 years of experience working closely with orthopedic and neurological surgeons. Read More

Daily Health Tip #28

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

There is a difference between doing and being. Are you interested in being or doing? Chose your way of “training” accordingly.

Daily Health Tip #27

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Keep your mind focused on what you do want, not what you don’t want. When athletes aim for excellence, they rarely “try not to miss.” A more powerful way to engage in sport and life is to aim for what you want.

Daily Health Tip #26

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Doing 15-20 minutes per day can get the job done - focusing on specific areas and future injuries- its quality not quantity.

Reducing the Risk of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries in Women

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:03:28 GMT

Dr. Gary Brazina, a board certified orthopaedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist offers important information to women to help them prevent ACL tears. Recent studies from multiple centers have shown that women have a significantly higher risk of tearing the anterior cruciate ligament and then in non contact sports. Studies have shown that women participating in female sports have from two to 10 times greater risk of injuring the ACL in sports that require landing and cutting such as basketball, soccer, and volleyball. Female skiers have also shown to be at increased risk of ACL tears at a far greater rate than men. For women, most anterior cruciate ligament injuries occur in the noncontact sports, when the athlete is decelerating, landing from a jump, or makes a pivoting move. The exact reason why women have this increased risk has not been clearly defined However, recent studies suggest that there is an in balance between the neuromuscular response. Athletic equipment, training techniques, hormonal and anatomic differences have all been cited as potential causes of the increased risk for ACL tears. Since title IX has been in place a greater number of females are participating in high school and collegiate athletics. And we as orthopedic surgeons are seeing an increased number of girls requiring anterior cruciate ligament surgery. New studies say just that training can decrease the incidence of an ACL injury in the female athlete by 50%. There is strong evidence demonstrating that "neuromuscular training" is a safe effective method to reduce ACL injuries in both men and women. Women appear to have several factors, which put them at risk: They are ligament dominant: this means that when the athlete pivots the knee ligaments become stressed. Long before the muscles fire to control knee motion. The lack of dynamic muscular control increases torque across the knee and leads to tearing of the ACL. Women appear to be quadriceps dominant. They activate their knee extensors (the quadriceps muscle) , predominantly over their knee flexors (hamstrings). Studies have shown that women have a tendency to have an imbalance between their legs such that one is significantly stronger and more coordinated than the opposite limb. Studies have also shown that the female athlete is trunk dominant with poor control of the upper body mass Training techniques, must address all four of these deficiencies. Hamstrings strengthening and core strengthening is vital. The trainer and coach must look for leg to leg imbalances and leg dominance. Weakness of the hamstrings as compared to the quadriceps and weakness of core muscles that prevent the athlete from controlling the trunk and developing inertia in the trunk all lead to increased risk for ACL injuries and can be addressed in training. All training programs must include: A strong warm-up program with at least 15 minutes pregame. Plyometric/jump training that emphasizes body posture and trunk control through core strengthening Task specific training can be used to strengthen the core Progressive resistance exercise training, that is strength training is vital and should be balanced between quadriceps and hamstring strength Aerobic, sport specific training, as well as sports skills need to be continually developed. Pre-season training is vital: with the least 6 to 8 weeks of preseason drills. Evaluation of sports equipment equipment to determine if it is designed for the female athlete should be utilized. While no one factor can completely eliminate the risk of a tear cruciate ligament tears in the young athlete, awareness by the coaching and training staff and the development of an ACL tear prevention program through proper training will go a long way to prevent injury.

Daily Health Tip #25

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Set your mind on small, realistic, and challenging goals that support your vision.

Daily Health Tip #24

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

If possible surround yourself in living plants. NASA has proved the air purification properties and they will lighten the mood.

Daily Health Tip #23

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

If you want to be grounded, slow down your exhale, be mindful of how you connect to the world.

Daily Health Tip #22

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:21:00 GMT

Activities you are unaccustomed to performing increases the risk of injury and thus should be done with care, awareness and moderation. For example, if you haven’t engaged in an activity for a while, ease into it. For example, if you haven’t jogged for a year, your 1st run should not be one or two miles and not the six miles you did 12 months ago.

D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center Announces John T. Knight, M.D. Will Serve as Director of the Newly Launched Hand and Wrist Institute at D.I.S.C.

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:37:51 GMT

Marina del Rey, Calif. (January 11, 2010) – D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center, an Official Medical Services Provider for the U.S. Olympic Team and one of the premiere sports medicine, orthopedic and spine centers in the country is proud to announce the launch of The Hand and Wrist Institute at D.I.S.C. under the direction of John T. Knight, M.D. according to CEO and founder Dr. Robert S. Bray, Jr., one of the country’s leading neurological spine surgeons. The Hand and Wrist Institute at D.I.S.C. will be located at both the Marina del Rey and Beverly Hills offices. They can be reached by calling 310.574.0400 or online at www.theHandandWristInstitute.com. “After Dr. Knight joined the medical group in late 2007, hand, wrist and upper extremity patient care has become an integral part of services provided by D.I.S.C.,” said Dr. Bray. “The opening of The Hand and Wrist Institute will provide added distinction to the high-caliber of treatment options available through the skillful expertise of Dr. Knight.” The Hand and Wrist Institute will offer a wide-array of services encompassing diagnostics, conservative care, pain management, rehabilitation and advanced arthroscopic and endoscopic procedures performed on an outpatient basis. Specializing in minimally invasive surgical techniques, Dr. Knight is highly-regarded for stitchless endoscopic carpal tunnel release and stitchless wrist arthroscopy which are dramatic improvements over the traditional open procedures allowing for a less painful and quicker recovery. “I am delighted with the opening of The Hand and Wrist Institute,” said Dr. Knight, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon. “Today more than ever, the use of our hands and wrists are vital to everyday activities. It our goal to help patients relieve pain and bring life back to their hands through the latest approved therapies and techniques.” A graduate of Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport, he received the Louisiana Orthopedic Association Outstanding Student Award. Following his orthopedic training at LSU Medical Center, he completed a Hand and Upper Extremity Fellowship at the Joseph H. Boyes program in Los Angeles. He has also received a Certificate of Added Qualifications in Surgery of the Hand. Dr. Knight brings with him more than 20 years of experience and has performed more than 15,000 procedures. Among his many achievements, he was one of the first doctors in the Southern U.S. to perform a successful toe-to-thumb transplantation. He also was one of the first in the U.S. to implant the Free Hand System, an internal computerized system restoring function to a quadriplegic patient’s hand.