Latest / Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health / Exploring the Intersection of Sports Psychiatry and Eating Disorder Care with Dr. Mark Allen

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Exploring the Intersection of Sports Psychiatry and Eating Disorder Care with Dr. Mark Allen · Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health

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  Welcome everyone to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
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  I'm Mariah Muhammad, writer and moderator with Becker's
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  Healthcare. And I'm thrilled to have with me
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  today doctor Mark Allen, chairman of the American
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  Board of Sports and Performance Psychiatry, and he's
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  also the newly appointed medical director of psychiatry
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  of ED Care. Doctor Allen, welcome to the
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  podcast. We're very excited to have you join
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  us today. To get us started, would you
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  mind please introducing yourself and telling us a
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  bit about your background?
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  Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me today.
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  I really appreciate it, and I appreciate the
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  work that Becker's done. So, yeah, again, my
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  name is doctor Mark Allen. I'm a child
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  adolescent and adult psychiatrist with a subspecialty in,
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  athlete specific care.
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  As you mentioned, I'm the the chairman of
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  the American Board of Sports Performance Psychiatry.
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  And I'm also the
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  owner and founder of Peak Sports Psychiatry, which
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  which is my private practice. I came to
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  ED Care a few months ago. I was
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  really excited to join the team that I
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  have, kind of admired from afar for a
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  while, due to their athlete specific program, Athlete
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  Edge.
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  Since being here, I've I really enjoyed getting
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  to know my team, and I'm gonna go
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  ahead and give them a little bit of
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  a shout out. So there's Linda Steinhart, my
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  ace dietitian. She was a a
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  college volleyball player. I have Kate Daley, who's
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  my ACE primary therapist. She was a
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  a cross country runner in college. And then
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  I also also have Taylor Smith, who's my
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  middle performance coach, and he was a a
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  college swimmer. So we have a lot of
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  athletic background, going on with my team, but
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  I'm really happy to hear and and talk
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  about the work we're doing.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Very excited to talk with
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  you today. And to jump right into the
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  first question I have for you, as the
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  newly appointed medical director of psychiatry at ED
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  Care, can you talk to us about the
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  work the organization is doing? And, also, what
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  is exciting you the most about stepping into
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  this role?
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  Absolutely. So ED care has been around for
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  over 20 years in providing high quality
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  eating disorder care for the community. It actually
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  exists in 3 different places. So we have
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  our site here in Denver, which is our
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  primary hub, that that has both a core
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  adult program,
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  both partial hospital and intensive outpatient, as well
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  as an adolescent program with partial hospital and
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  intensive outpatient,
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  as well as our, athlete program, which I'll
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  get into a little bit more later. We
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  also have our Kansas City campus, which has
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  been running really smoothly for a long time,
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  which has a PHP and IOP for both
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  adults and kids.
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  And then, our Omaha campus, which is a
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  little bit newer, and and they're doing great
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  work there. So we we have 3 different
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  sites that we're covering. We also have a
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  virtual program that we, expect to expand.
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  What what excited most about for me is
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  is the reputation that it had prior to
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  me coming on, and also the fact that
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  it has what I'd like to think is
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  the premier
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  athlete specific,
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  location for for eating disorder recovery in the
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  country.
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  Wonderful. Yeah. That is definitely a lot to
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  be excited about. So congratulations on stepping into
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  this role.
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  Kind of switching gears, I feel like eating
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  disorders are often an
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  under recognized in sports. I feel like I
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  really never hear about it in the news
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  or anyone's personal story.
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  What unique factors make athletes more vulnerable, and
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  how can providers in the health care community
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  address this hidden crisis?
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  Yeah. So,
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  the issue with eating disorders that there is
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  that there are invisible
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  injuries. You would never know just
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  looking in the community what people walking around,
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  whether someone has an eating disorder or not,
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  unless they were just overtly thin, and they'd
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  also told you that they had an eating
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  disorder. Of course, eating disorders,
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  they can hit any part of the community,
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  all sexes, genders,
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  and and and and part of culture. So
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  it's it literally can happen anywhere.
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  Specific to athletics, there's actually a 3 to
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  4 time greater risk of having an eating
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  disorder. And it's not that sports cause
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  eating disorders or disordered eating, it's that they
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  there are aspects of the environment that can
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  actually
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  lead to the development of of dysfunctional
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  exercise in addition to a potential,
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  restrictive eating patterns or drive for fitness that
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  that may be there.
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  And that percentage is, you know, roughly 20%
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  of of the athletic population can be diagnosed
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  with an eating disorder, whereas the general population,
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  it's more in the 5 to 9% range.
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  Athletes,
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  there are there are aspects to it that
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  that are really important to to look at.
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  Aesthetic sports, so appearance based sports, there can
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  be a lot of pressure put on athletes
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  to maintain a certain public body image
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  because they're actually graded in their sport according
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  to that.
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  Examples be like gymnastics,
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  or or even in dance.
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  The weight based sports, we see a lot
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  of of of athletes that come in related
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  to that where they're actually having to hit
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  a certain weight range,
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  which if your body type or phenotype,
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  pre pugil doesn't match what it was after
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  puberty. And you're trying to put a square
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  peg in a round hole that can be
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  incredibly difficult,
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  and it'll put a lot of pressure on
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  athlete to either cut weight, which can be
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  very dangerous.
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  And that's why we're here to support them,
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  and also to help with the, the the
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  community at large, like the the coaching staff
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  or the athletic family that's around a patient.
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  So if you think about it, we don't
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  treat
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  athletes or or even kids, if you think
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  about it in a in a silo. We
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  treat a greater family system. In sports, that
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  athletic family includes, you know, their their trainers,
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  their coaches, their teammates.
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  And so the work that we do is
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  is really, not not only multidisciplinary, but involves
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  education
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  of, of
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  athletic departments or teams or or whomever so
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  that they can really help support the athlete
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  when they return to, where they came from.
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  Yeah. Thank you so much for giving us
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  all that insight. I mean, the the first
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  thing you said, the 3, 4 times at
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  risk of developing a a eating disorder, that
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  is definitely an interesting, statistic.
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  So thank you for sharing that. And EDCARE's
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  athlete edge program is one of the few
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  specialized programs for athletes with eating disorders.
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  How does it integrate
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  behavioral health care,
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  and why is specialized treatment so important for
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  long term success?
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  Yeah. So
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  most eating disorders or, eating disorder programs around
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  the country do a good job or or
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  or try to do a good job dealing
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  with the, the intake aspect of the actual
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  nutritional rehabilitation
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  of of folks and to help them
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  create healthier, you know, methods of coping that
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  don't involve,
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  either restricting
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  maladaptive
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  coping strategies like restricted eating, purging,
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  or even,
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  excess movement. But with specific to the athletic
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  population,
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  we really focus on helping curb dysfunctional exercise
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  that return to movement.
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  So, and that we actually use an evidence
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  based protocol called the safe exercise at every
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  stage,
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  which was developed over many years with
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  a lot of experts around the world.
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  And, we use a multidisciplinary approach. So athletes
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  who come to us are assigned therapists, a
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  mental performance coach, a dietitian, myself a psychiatrist.
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  And we start from day 1
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  talking about, hey, you know, you wanna get
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  the athlete back to sport, but this has
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  to happen in stages. And and,
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  if you actually restrict movement completely,
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  from the beginning, it actually can lead to
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  much higher risk of injury or pay or
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  athletes who are trying to overdo it.
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  So what we do is by following this
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  this protocol, we can very safely
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  introduce healthy movement
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  and exercise back to training and then eventually
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  to to sport sport and competition.
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  That involves,
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  a really,
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  I give a multidisciplinary
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  team and a lot of education with with
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  the team that would that will be taking
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  that athlete back to to understand that, hey.
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  We we can't we can't go from from
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  0 to 60,
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  so quickly.
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  Thank you so much for giving us all
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  that wonderful information, doctor. And before I let
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  you go, the last thing that I really
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  wanted to ask
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  you, I heard that the that ED care
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  has been expanding its adolescence program. Can you
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  tell me a little bit more about that?
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  Absolutely.
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  Here at ED care, we we've noticed, there
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  were there were some national trends
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  between, like, 2018 and 2022 where more than
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  a 100%.
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  There's a more than a 100% hike in
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  eating disorder diagnosis
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  during that time period
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  within the adolescent population, so under the age
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  of 18. So what we did was we
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  actually invested more than $1,000,000
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  to expand services,
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  specifically
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  related to also taking Medicaid so that we
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  could help the community more.
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  So we since February, our program has been
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  rocking and rolling at full capacity.
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  We have a blend of individual,
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  family,
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  and group therapy as well as nutritional support,
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  physio, and psychiatric management. So we're just to
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  make sure that we have a holistic approach
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  to recovery.
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  I'm really excited since
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  adolescent, eating disorder treatment, is is unfortunately a
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  little bit of a rarity, especially in person
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  care. And so I I feel like we
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  can do a lot of a lot of
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  good for the community.
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  Yeah. Yeah. That definitely makes a lot of
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  sense. And thank you so much for sharing
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  all this very important information,
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  and for those final thoughts, doctor Allen. This
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  has definitely been an informative discussion. So, again,
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  I wanna thank you so much for coming
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  on Becker's HealthCare, and I look forward to
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  connecting with you again soon. Thank you so
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  much. I appreciate it.