MEDICA, the world’s leading medical trade fair, will take place as an in-person event again this year at the fairgrounds in Düsseldorf, Germany, along with the accompanying MEDICA MEDICINE + SPORTS CONFERENCE. This conference has been part of the MEDICA program for nine years and will bring together internationally renowned sports physicians, sports scientists, visionaries, physiotherapists, sports tech bods and experts for an interdisciplinary dialogue about innovative approaches in prevention, regeneration and rehabilitation in elite sports and sports for maintaining health. The MEDICA trade fair will take place from November 15 – 18, 2021, the conference from November 17 – 18. This English-speaking conference is accredited as a category A continuous training event by the North Rhine Medical Association and will take place in the Düsseldorf Congress Center (CCD Süd). The top themes this year include returning to sports after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, tailored training programs for active ageing and digital innovations for sports medicine. In line with MEDICA's hybrid event concept, conference participation is possible with a ticket for in-person attendance or an online ticket to access the livestream.

On November 17, the conference will start with the session on the topic “Returning to Sports” after a COVID infection - with the focus on long COVID. One of those affected is Lena Mikulic. She won second place in karate in the German U21 league and was the subjects of a television documentary. After contracting COVID with a mild course in November 2020, she realized that she could no longer train like she used to. When Prof. Jürgen Steinacker examined her in Ulm in March 2021, she was diagnosed with long COVID, including myocarditis and pericardial effusion. Mikulic and Steinacker will give talks at the MEDICA MEDICINE SPORTS. Those who think Long COVID is a not-so-serious phantom disease are wrong. Prof. Steinacker makes this clear in his lecture. Elite athletes are used to paying a lot of attention to their bodies, and Steinacker states: “We’re not talking about a 5% drop in performance, we’re talking about 30% to 50%”. A 32 year old could thus drop to an oxygen intake of a 50 year old, he said. SARS-CoV-2 is not the only illness to cause this. Steinacker has also observed fatigue following other viral infections, although this is mostly dependent on the genetics of the relevant person and is therefore less common. SARS-CoV-2, on the other hand, is capable of infecting and damaging broader populations. Experts now believe that 10 – 20% of those infected will contract Long COVID.

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