Health blog Category: physical therapy
Mobility in this Joint can be a Reason for Back Pain
Believe it or not, your hips play a large role in the health of your back and limited hip mobility can cause back pain. More than 80 percent of the population will suffer from back pain at least once in their life, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control. It is the price we pay for walking upright on two legs.
However, the majority of back pain is non-specific, meaning that there is not a primary cause, such as a fracture or disc protrusion.
Important Tools to Relieve Sciatica Pain
In a study reported in the journal Orthopedics, 650 people were examined for low back pain or sciatica. About 25% had reported an episode of sciatica in the past 6 months of the study. This shows how common sciatica really is.
What is Sciatica?
Sciatica is a term used to describe pain in the buttock or radiating down the leg that is caused by irritation to the sciatic nerve.
Read full blogWhat Are Certified Athletic Trainers?
Athletic trainers (ATs) are highly qualified, multi-skilled health care professionals who render service or treatment, under the direction of or in collaboration with a physician, in accordance with their education, training and the state’s statutes, rules and regulations. As a part of the health care team, services provided by athletic trainers include primary care, injury and illness prevention, wellness promotion and education, emergent care, examination and clinical diagnosis, therapeutic intervention and rehabilitation of injuries and medical conditions. The NATA Code of Ethics states the principles of ethical behavior that should be followed in the practice of athletic training.
Read full blogRotator Cuff Trouble
An irritated shoulder with certain motions or when we sleep, is a sign our rotator cuff could be giving us trouble.
Strength and stability of the rotator cuff is needed to relieve that pain or irritation and to help us complete all of our daily activities such as:
- Brushing our hair
- Brushing our teeth
- Lifting objects overhead
- Throwing a baseball
Rotator Cuff Anatomy
The rotator cuff is the group of four muscles that surround your shoulder joint, guiding and controlling the way your shoulder moves.
Read full blogHerniated and Bulging Discs: Symptoms to Look For
Radiating pain, numbness or tingling is a possible indicator that one or more of your nerves may be irritated by a bulging or herniated disc.
What are Discs and What do They do?
The bones in our spine are called vertebrae and in-between the vertebrae are our discs, these discs act as shock absorbers. These control the spine’s range of motion, flexibility and keep the bones and spinal cord safe from damage.
Read full blogTips to Less Arthritis Pain
When it comes to relieving arthritis aches and pains, we may have more options than we realize. There is a lot that can be done to reduce our aches and pains from arthritis while gaining more mobility and function.
Arthritis pain and inflammation is what we help our patients day in and day out with. Patients often experience pain from arthritis because of stiff joints, muscles and other tissues. In addition, muscles become weak, therefore not supporting the arthritic joints.
Common Elbow Injuries
The most common injuries of the elbow are the result of overuse or injury resulting in inflammation or a condition known as tendonitis.
Tennis Elbow and Golfer’s Elbow are both overuse injuries that are caused by any activity that requires repetitive motion of the arm and wrist. The difference between the two conditions lies in where the elbow is inflamed.
Common symptoms of Tennis Elbow/Lateral Epicondylitis include:
- Pain that radiates from the outside of your elbow and down your forearm and wrist
- Tenderness on the outside of your elbow (May be constant or present with activity)
- Weakness in your forearm or a weak grip
- Pain when you extend your wrist
- Pain when reaching, lifting or when gripping or twitting things or if you play tennis, especially with backhand strokes
* Repetitive motions using forehand/backhand are also common in cooks, painters, carpenters, plumbers or computer/mouse work.
Read full blogShoulder Fractures
Fractures at the top part of the shoulder are very common.
The risk of fracturing the shoulder increases with age for various reasons:
- Increase in balance issues with age
- More common to have osteoporosis
- Lack of physical activity leading to weaker muscles in the winter
- Increased number of people over the age of 65 with osteoporosis
How do the above lead to more fractures?
The more inactive you are, the weaker your muscles become because of disuse. When your muscles are weak, your balance becomes affected which increases your risk of falling. Then there is osteoporosis. Osteoporosis involves a decrease in new bone formation while the body is continuing to break down bone. This results in more brittle bones and a more increased risk of fracture when a fall occurs.
How do you know that you may have a shoulder fracture?
Read full blogSnapping Hip Syndrome
What is Snapping Hip syndrome?
This condition is classified by a “snapping” sensation at the front or side of your hip joint, caused by a muscle or tendon moving over a bony structure of the joint. For some individuals this causes only the sensation of “snapping” without pain, but for others it can be painful and limit ability to perform activities of daily living or recreational activities.
Where does it occur?
Read full blogTightness in Hamstrings
We’ve all been there, we spend a long time sitting and when we go to stand up and walk we feel a pull in the back of our thigh and feel like we can’t stand completely upright. Those tight muscles we feel stiffening up are our hamstrings. These are the muscles that we commonly feel to be tight or restricting with our motion in our legs or sometimes our lower backs. The hamstrings are a large muscle group made up of 3 muscles:
- semitendinosus
- semimembranosus
- biceps femoris
These muscles attach from the bottom of our pelvis to just below our knee.
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