Health blog Category: physical therapy
Scoliosis
What is Scoliosis?
Scoliosis in layman’s terms is the abnormal sideways curvature or rotation of the spine. Any curve, lateral or rotational greater than 10 degrees is considered Scoliosis. As the curve progresses to 20 degrees or beyond, there is an increased chance that the person or an observer, such as a parent or teacher, might notice abnormalities such as clothes hanging unevenly or the body tilting to one side. For The anatomy of the spine has “normal” curves in different regions to allow for proper movement mechanics and the absorption of force, however once those curves become excessive and/or create pain in additional areas it becomes an anatomical concern.
Read full blogWhat is a Fracture?
Simply put, a fracture is the medical term for a break in a bone within the body. There are many different classifications of a fracture and each one has its own characteristics and healing time. Being told that you have a fracture can be a scary thing, but knowledge is power! Read below to learn about the different types of fractures and what to expect as you recover.
Types of fractures:
Overall classification of break
- Displaced: Bone breaks and moves out of place
- Non-Displaced: Bone breaks but does not move out of place
- Closed: Bone does not break through the skin
- Open: Bone breaks through the skin
Patterns of fractures:
Ways in which the bone can break
- Avulsion: A piece of bone breaks off
- Comminuted: Bone breaks into many pieces
- Greenstick: the bone bends but does not break completely (common in children)
- Spiral: The bone was twisted to create the break
- Stress: A small fracture in the bone (hairline)
How long will it take to heal?
Read full blogWhat are Shin Splints?
“Shin Splints” is a term used for pain in the front of your shins, mostly from overuse in runners, jumpers, or hikers. The pain runs along the tibia (lower leg bone) where the muscles insert. The 2 most common muscles involved in shin splints are the tibialis anterior and the tibialis posterior. Tibialis posterior acts to move your foot inward, and brings your toes away from your nose.
What Causes Shin Splints?
Shin Splints can be caused by several different things including:
- Overtraining
- Increasing mileage or pace too quickly
- Not varying mileage, pace, or surface on which you are running
- Poor Footwear
- Shoes that are worn out
- Incorrect shoes for your type of foot
- Shoes with poor shock absorption
- Poor running mechanics
- Lack of hip strength
- Excessive pronation or supination at the foot
- lack of ankle strength
- Tightness in the calf or hamstring
- Excessive stride length
What Can I Do About My Shin Splints?
Read full blogWhat is the “Core”?
What Makes up the Core?
- Diaphragm: Dome shaped muscles underneath your lower ribcage of the core. It is your primary breathing muscle. When breathing with the diaphragm, the stomach expands on the inhale and retracts on the exhale.
- Abdominals:
- Transversus Abdominus- deepest abdominal muscle that produces no MAJOR observable motion, but functions as an internal corset.
- Rectus abdominus: produces spinal flexion (think of crunches or sit-ups)
- External Obliques (E.O.): produces rotation to the opposite side (right E.O.
Four Common Neck Conditions
The neck, a.k.a cervical spine, is comprised of 7 spinal segments and 8 nerves. The nerves that exit out of the neck go on to supply innervation and control function of the arms and hands. It is also important to know that some of the muscles that control neck motion are responsible for shoulder motion too.
Common Conditions:
- Cervical Radiculopathy
- Restricted nerve mobility in the neck that can cause pain into the shoulders and arms
- Muscle Spain/Strain
- Muscle that produces pain with contraction (use)
- The term “strain” specifically refers to faulty tendon contraction. Tendons are where muscles attach to bones.
Three Common Sources of Hip Pain
Hip pain can present in many ways. In this blog we will discuss some of the common problems we see here at LSTC!
- Osteoarthritis: wearing of the joint surfaces (cartilage) of the hip joint
- Mechanism of Injury:
- Wear and Tear
- Prior trauma
- FAI: see below
- Symptoms:
- Pain worse with prolonged positioning (e.g. sitting for a long period of time
- Pain worse in the morning: typically resolves within 5-10 minutes of movement
- Pain worse with cold weather
- Decreased mobility
- Difficulty walking
- Groin, buttock, or knee pain
- Mechanism of Injury:
- Femoracetabular Impingement (FAI): excess contact between the acetabulum (hip socket) and proximal femur (top of the hip bone) because of how the bones are shaped/sized
- Mechanism of Injury:
- Cam-type impingement: the hip bone is too big near the top (at the femoral neck)
- More common in biological men
- Pincer-type impingement: the socket (acetabulum) is too big
- More common in biological women
- Repetitive stress: certain activities will place increased stress on bones. The way the body responds to increased stress is by laying down more bone in those areas. This extra bone can result in increased contact between the joint surfaces
- Cam-type impingement: the hip bone is too big near the top (at the femoral neck)
- Symptoms:
- Anterior hip/groin pain
- Buttock pain
- Catching, Giving-way sensations, popping, locking
- Pain with sitting, squatting, stair navigation
- Pain with acceleration in sports
- Decreased available motion
- Mechanism of Injury:
- Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome: resultant of gluteal tendon damage or bursa (fluid filled sac) inflammation
- Mechanism of Injury:
- Sedentary Nature
- Improper athletic training: lack of gradual progression
- Repetitive Activity
- Symptoms:
- Lateral hip pain
- Pain lying on the affected side
- Pain with prolonged sitting and/or sitting with legs crossed
- Pain with walking, stair navigation, standing, running
- Mechanism of Injury:
Why Physical Therapy, Why NOW?!
Read full blogBetter Posture
You may have heard that good posture is essential for good health, but do you know why??
- Posture refers to how you position your body when you’re sitting, standing, or lying down. Your posture is the result of habits formed over the course of years.
What is Good Posture?
- It is the proper alignment of your body when standing or sitting.
- Correct positioning involves training yourself to hold your body against gravity with the least strain and tension on supportive structures, such as your muscles and ligaments.
- Proper posture keeps your bones and joints in optimal alignment and decreases wear and tear on supportive structures.
What is Manual Therapy?
Manual Therapy is made up of many different hands-on techniques that we use in the clinic. Each offer their own benefits and are implemented for many reasons. We use manual therapy to help restore mobility, restore joint movement, decrease nerve tension, and improve nerve mobility and help reduce pain.
There are many different techniques that fall into the category of manual therapy. Some of these categories include but are not limited to:
- Soft Tissue Mobilization
- Joint Mobilizations
- Muscle Energy Techniques
- Passive Range of Motion
- Neural Mobilizations
Soft Tissue Mobilization:
Soft Tissue Mobilization helps to reduce soft tissue adhesions and help promote muscle, ligament, and tendon mobility.
Read full blogFun Facts About Nutrition
Nutrition plays a great role in our daily life. The food or liquids affect our body and health because each food or liquid contains particular nutrition which is very necessary for our physical and mental growth. A particular level of any particular nutrition is essential for our body. So, we should know what food we have to take, how much and what type of nutrition contains a particular food. There is a lot of controversy in nutrition, and it often seems like people can’t agree on anything.
Read full blogFoot and Ankle Problems
There are many reasons as to why your foot and ankle could be bothering you. Some of the primary injuries we see here at LSTC are:
- Ankle sprains
- Plantar fasciitis
- Achilles Tendonitis
Ankle sprains are a very common injury we treat here at LSTC. The most common ankle sprain is an inversion sprain which happens when your foot gets turned towards the other foot and stretches the tendons and ligaments on the outside of the ankle causing the injury.
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