Heres our Top 5 tips on how to avoid spinal pain
1. Changeup your posture
– don’t spend more than 20 min before changing your posture
– go from kneeling to standing to sitting back to kneeling
2. Exercise daily
– spend 30-45 min most days doing some form of exercise
– break it up into
A) Cardio eg. walk / jog
B) strength work eg push ups
C) circuit work – mixture of both
- check out our blog on how to exercise during COVID 19
3. Workstation setup
- see below for how to set yourself up
4. Take regular breaks
- you should break from the your workstation every 20-30 min – for 2 min at a time
- take this opportunity to roll your shoulders, stretch your neck and do some back bends
5. Use self management strategies
- foam rollers
- spikey balls
- therabands
see below
Cricket is one of the most popular sports to play for young people and engaging in sports such as cricket provide numerous health benefits. However, like any other sport playing cricket involves some risk of injury.
The young athlete is particularly vulnerable due to some of the physical and physiological processes during the growth period. Additionally, some might be an increased risk due to poor coordination, strength and skills.
Some common injuries that frequently come into the clinic include lower back pain, knee pain and heel pain. Below I will describe some of the common injuries that occur in younger athletes.
Low Back Pain
Back pain is common particularly in cricket due to the high demands that the sport has on a person’s back, particularly for bowlers. The back is particularly vulnerable in adolescents during the growth period. Generally speaking, young people respond really well to physiotherapy and a structure strength and conditioning program.
Knee pain otherwise referred to as Osgood-Schlatter’s
This is an extremely common condition in adolescents at the time of a growth spurt. It is typically associated with sports that involve running and jumping. Osgood-Schlatter’s is a self limiting condition that generally settles with time, however, physiotherapy can be beneficial for pain management and strengthening of the leg.
Heel Pain otherwise referred to as Sever’s Apophysitis
Heel pain is another common complaint in adolescents. Once again sever’s is common in children that play sports that involve running and jumping. Physiotherapy is very effective in managing pain and providing advice on activity modification for children who have Sever’s Apophysitis.
If you or anyone else has got an injury similar to the injuries that are explained above, please feel free to get in contact with one of the fantastic physiotherapists here at Physiologic and get an assessment to see how you can best manage and treat your injury.
COVID-19 Screening Questionnaire
- Are you feeling unwell with symptoms such as fever, sore throat, cough or shortness of breath?
- Have you had close contact* with someone who has a confirmed case of coronavirus (COVID-19)? *Face-to-face contact for more than 15 minutes, or have shared an enclosed space for more than two hours.
- Have you travelled overseas in the last 14 days?
- Did you arrive in this state from another state after midnight Wednesday 25 March?
If you answered yes to any of the questions above, we recommend that you:
- Reschedule your appointment for as soon as possible after the 14-day exclusion
- Self-isolate at home for 14 days (as per the government protocols) after any international travel or if you have had close contact with a person with confirmed COVID-19 while infectious.
- Please call your GP if you develop any respiratory symptoms or fever.
First published March 26, 2020 12:40pm. Updated 6th January 8:30am AEST
At Physiologic, we’re focused on the well-being of every person who steps through our clinic doors. This includes the health and safety of our local communities, which is you, our patients, as well as our team members.
➕ We want to reassure you that we are closely monitoring the Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation, are regularly updating our internal policy and processes according to any daily mandates and recommendations from the government and the Department of Health.
➕ Following government guidelines, we are asking all people who have travelled in the last 14 days not to present to the clinic. We are helping to reschedule appointments, and we look forward to welcoming these patients back following the appropriate period of quarantine.
➕ We are asking patients to let us know if they are showing signs or symptoms of the Coronavirus. Should this be the case we are rescheduling appointments and requesting clearance by their GP or evidence of a returned a negative test.
➕ We have made hand sanitisers and hand-washing facilities available to all our team members and patients within the clinic. We are following best guidelines from the Department of Health for cleaning our clinic facilities, waiting areas and equipment.
➕ Where possible clinics are being re-arranged to ensure there is less close contact between patients, and as able we are moving our patients quickly through and away from the common areas. This includes implementing the current social distancing guidelines (2m apart, 1 person per 4m squared inside).
Click here for current information from the Australian Government Department of Health
Other ways you can help us, help you.
Steps you can take:
- Wash hands often with soap and running water, for at least 20 seconds. Dry with paper towel or hand dryer.
- Use an alcohol-based hand sanitiser if you don’t have access to wash hands with soap and water
- Try not to touch your eyes, nose or mouth
- Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. If you don’t have a tissue cough or sneeze into your upper sleeve or elbow
- Call your GP first if you need medical attention. They will advise you what to do
- Continue healthy habits: exercise, drink water, get plenty of sleep
- If you have flu like symptoms or you are presenting as unwell, please call our clinic where our reception team will assist you to reschedule your appointment.
- Practice social distancing and avoid touching, shaking hands, kissing, hugging, and other intimate contact with others
- We ask that only the individual being treated attend the clinic. In the interests of health and safety for all we are attempting to minimise the number of people in the waiting room at any given time.
Some extra items to now bring along to your appointment:
- Please bring two (2) clean towels and/or a pillowcase for your personal use during your appointment.
- Pen (if you would prefer not to use the pens at our reception desk)
- Water bottle
We appreciate that this is a challenging time for all and that some of these measures may create some disruption to your treatment. Thank you for your patience and understanding. We are committed to doing everything we can continue to deliver a safe and reassuring service to all of our valued patients.
Today we follow Adam as he does a Running Assessment with our running/marathon expert Dave Coombs.
As mentioned in our previous blog (see here) Adam is preparing for his first Gold Coast marathon in July.
Watch nowhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rul0B2a0wIs
You can follow his journey on our YouTube or Facebook page
For more details on how we can assist your training or to improve your running technique call us on 5578-7155.
How Physiotherapy can assist with headache pain and severity – Adam Shaw Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist
I recently conducted an education evening on headaches and would like to share some of the information we discussed at this evening with you.
There are constantly new headaches that are being discovered according to some researchers – recently we have added hot-bath related headache and headache attributed to space travel! There are now over 300 types of headache described in research! BUT, are there really 300 different causes of headache? In the past it was assumed that headache is caused by blood vessel changes within the brain due to their throbbing nature but there is no research to support this. In fact, it has been shown that blood vessels only change after the onset of headache and remain changed until headache has gone. Due to this, it is likely that blood vessel changes are a symptom of headache – not the cause. The same goes for the theory that muscle tension causes headache, research suggests that there is no increased activity in muscles between headache sufferers and those without.
Another more recent theory has more substantial evidence backing it up. It has been suggested that an area of the brainstem called the trigeminocervical nucleus (TCN) is responsible. This area of the brain is responsible for processing information received from the face and neck and if it is sensitised you are more likely to suffer from headache symptoms. Research has shown that those who suffer from migraines and tension type headaches have signs of increased brain stem sensitivity.
It is therefore, unlikely there are 300 different causes of headache. The variety of migraines and headache are not separate conditions with different causes but different expressions of the same condition – that condition being the sensitised brain stem.
The brainstem TCN I mentioned earlier is like the control centre for receiving information from the face and top 3 levels of your neck. If this control centre is affected and now all the messages it receives are exaggerated – kind of like turning the volume up on an amplifier. Then the rest of the brain gets an inaccurate picture of that is going on and subsequently we get overload resulting in headache or other associated symptoms such as dizziness or nausea.
One of the main reasons for this control centre (TCN) to become oversensitive is dysfunction in the upper parts of our neck. Continual information from these levels due to things such as weak neck and shoulder blade muscles, poor posture and overuse can cause onset of symptoms. Often the presence of triggers such as stress, certain foods or bright lights can lead to headache. It is thought that these only trigger headache in the presence of an already pre primed brainstem. If you settle the brainstem irritation you remove the trigger. These triggers alone are not enough to cause the severe pain of headache – it is the sensory processing of these triggers that causes symptoms.
Fortunately, there are medications that can help and you may have tried some of these. They often work by calming down the irritated brainstem, however, often they are required to be taken at the first sign of headache – miss this opportunity and the horse has bolted – the brainstem is already too wound up to settle down and you just need to wait it out.
Physiotherapy can help calm this system down in a more long-term manner by treating one of the initial causes of the brain stem sensitisation in the first place – the neck! An Adelaide based Physiotherapist Dean Watson has been treating headache for over 25 years and has developed a specific technique aimed at ascertaining which area of the neck is causing symptoms. This can be done by reproducing symptoms and subsequently reducing them with treatment to the neck. Hands on physio plus exercise has been shown to be an effective treatment strategy. It must be said this is not a panacea, however, treatment is effective in the vast majority of cases and it can be established quite early (within 4-5 treatments) whether it will help.
You may have been suffering from headaches over a long period of time or have found other treatment ineffective. I would encourage you to speak with a Physiotherapist trained in the Dean Watson Approach about whether they could assist them in their management. Physiologic is currently offering gap free initial consultations for headache sufferers to determine if they may benefit.
If you have any questions on the above information, please feel free to contact me at the clinic.
Adam Shaw
Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist
