Health blog Category: Physical Therapy
Reach for Our Toes
To be able to reach our toes, we need the help of our hamstrings! While hamstring injuries can happen to an athlete during a practice or a game, it’s actually much more common for all of us to experience hamstring problems related to everyday activities.
A hamstring injury will start to make you feel stiffness and soreness throughout your leg which will make everyday things more difficult, such as:
- Walking
- Changing positions (getting in and out of the car or a chair, etc)
- Bending
The hamstring muscle can be quite temperamental when we don’t give it enough attention.
Read full blogTrouble Lifting Our Arm
The shoulder is a common region in which people complain of pain and discomfort and trouble lifting their arm. Shoulder discomfort and pain can commonly affect our ability to get a good nights’ sleep, carry groceries, shower, wash clothes, reach into overhead cabinets, and to tuck in our shirt.
Don’t let shoulder discomfort and pain limit you these activities or anything else!
Minor inflammation or minor tears can become worsened if aggravating factors are not addressed and prevent you from playing tennis, reaching that plate from the upper cabinet or scratching that itch in the middle of your back. The sooner treatment is initiated, the better.
Hip Issues make Standing and Walking Difficult
Hip problems make daily activities like simply walking, standing and bathing difficult and painful. Hip pain is often felt in the groin or on the outside of the hip directly where the joint is located.
Causes:
Most of the common causes of hip pain are due to wear and tear and overuse. This means that most hip problems are the result of repetitive movements we do on a daily basis.
Read full blogTendonitis & Bursitis: Cause of Joint Discomfort
Tendonitis and bursitis can restrict you from heading to your weekly tennis or racquetball games, carrying your groceries to the car, and exercising. Baseball pitchers can develop tendonitis in the muscles in the shoulder from throwing pitches with poor mechanics. A parent may develop tendonitis from repeatedly lifting their child with similarly poor shoulder mechanics.
Tendonitis and bursitis are inflammatory issues that can appear anywhere in the body there is a joint such as the elbow, knee, shoulder and hip.
Knee Discomfort Making it Difficult to Walk
When you have knee discomfort prolonged walking, running/jogging, going up and down stairs or curbs, bending your knee to put your shoes and socks on, and getting in and out of the car becomes bothersome.
Have you increased your activity level in the past month?
This can create increased stress on your joint and muscles and when you haven’t properly prepared these joints and muscles for that stress, problems can occur.
Read full blogYou Do Not Have to Live with Back Problems
People living with back problems and pain are often plagued by the inability to sleep, with difficulty tying their shoes, bathing, sitting at work, or standing while waiting in line at the grocery store. They are restricted from their extracurricular sports activities and enjoying their favorite zumba exercise classes.
Like many conditions, when we have pain or discomfort in one area of the body, if you don’t handle it, it can start impacting another area of the body and restrict you from enjoying your night at the movies, throwing the football with your son or participating with your hiking club’s adventures. Back problems can make it difficult for you to complete your daily routine activities around the house.
Arthritis: Maintain Your Independence
Arthritis can prevent you from being able to reach in your overhead cabinets, take a walk with a friend or your dog, go up and down stairs, and participate in your favorite physical activities or hobbies such as dance or golf.
You’ve probably been out somewhere and had a friend or family member say that they were stiff, or even heard them predict the weather because of how they were feeling. It’s pretty common from middle age and on to have been diagnosed with osteoarthritis.
Neck Problems Cause Difficulty Turning Our Heads
Neck problems can cause us difficulty turning our head from side to side when driving to check your blind spots, bending our neck up and down as we do when working on our computers or looking at our cell phones. Neck problems may also cause us to have trouble sleeping and may be the cause of our headaches which can affect our ability to concentrate on our work. Neck problems are becoming more common due to our sedentary lifestyles.
Read full blogSciatica Can Make Walking Difficult
Sciatica can make daily activities like simply walking and sitting difficult and painful. Sciatica is a very common condition that affects 10% of the population. However, many more people suffer with sciatica-like symptoms from low back pain to numbness in the leg.
You may have Sciatica if you are experiencing the following:
- Tenderness to the deep gluteus (buttocks) muscles
- Numbness, tingling or pain that travels broadly down the thigh
- Constant pain that may originate in the low back, but travels mainly down the back of the buttock and thigh
- Pain that feels better when lying down or walking, but worsens with sitting
Potential damage can occur to the spinal joints and nerves so it is important to see a physical therapist as soon as possible to prevent the risk of this from occurring and to determine the exact origins of your symptoms so you can get back to standing, walking and sitting comfortably as soon as possible.
Read full blogHeadaches – Poor Posture May Be To Blame
Poor posture may be causing us headaches, discomfort, and stiffness. Headaches can be debilitating and prevent us from playing with our children, having dinner with our families, and completing our daily tasks such as doing the dishes or laundry.
How is your posture? Many of us have sedentary jobs at a desk and/or use mobile technology for day-to-day communications. Think about how you sit when you do these things. It’s easy for us to slip into a poor posture when we’re mindlessly reading emails or sending texts. If our posture issues are not addressed, it can contribute to neck pain, stiffness, nagging headaches, trouble standing up and other painful issues that will prevent us from being able to make that concert with friends or a family gathering. It may even keep us home and unable to go to work and will, most likely, continue to recur.
