The importance of a home exercise program combined with physical therapy treatment cannot be stressed enough. There are 168 hours in a week, and for most patients, only 2-3 hours are spent in physical therapy. In other words only 1.5% of waking hours are spent in physical therapy. For patients with movement disorders, the rest [...]
Do your knees hurt? Have you been told that you have arthritis of the knees? Arthritis is one of the most common diseases affecting more than 51 million people in 2012. There are many different types of arthritis, but the most common types are osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis is defined as an inflammation of [...]
Do you have a history of recurrent heel pain? You may be suffering from a common condition known as plantar fasciitis (PF). Plantar meaning "the sole of the foot" and fasciitis meaning "inflammation of the surrounding connective tissue". This is a common condition treated by healthcare practitioners including physical therapists. This condition can cause a [...]
Does lifting your arm overhead cause you pain? Has anyone told you it might be a Rotator Cuff issue? Here are some quick facts about the shoulder and the rotator cuff. The shoulder joint is composed of 3 bones including the humerus, scapula (shoulder blade), and clavicle (collarbone). The shoulder is a ball and socket [...]
Chronic ankle sprains are when the ankle joint gives way too easily - 6 months after the first ankle sprain, or if the ankle is sprained again within 6 months of the first ankle sprain. It has been determined that 10-20 out of every 100 people with ankle sprain will develop chronic ankle instability. Many [...]
Is stress making your neck pain worse? Have you ever been to your doctor and been told that your pain is all in your head? There may be some truth to this, but not in the way you might think. A meta analysis performed by the Journal of Psychosomatic Research found a strong correlation between [...]
‘Whiplash-associated disorders’ (WAD) is the term given to the variety of symptoms often reported by patients following acceleration/deceleration injury to the neck. The chief complaint is neck pain but neck stiffness, dizziness, paraesthesia/anaesthesia in the upper quadrant, headache and arm pain are also commonly reported. Whiplash injury following a road traffic crash is quite common. [...]
Scoliosis is a curvature deformity of the spine that is commonly pictured as an S or C shaped curve involving twisting and rotation of the vertebrae. Scoliosis is vastly idiopathic due to unknown multifactorial causes including but not limited to; family history and hormonal imbalance. Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is the most common type of [...]
When reviewing the medical history intake form of my recent new patients, I noticed an increasing number of those who have the YES bubbled in indicating they have COPD. According to Move Forward PT, COPD is estimated to be the fifth leading cause of death in the world. More commonly affecting men rather than women, [...]
With soccer season in full swing, it is not uncommon for the therapist at John Goetze Physical Therapy to see an increase in ACL tears. However, it may only take simple warm-up exercises to prevent one of the most common serious knee injuries suffered by youth athletes, especially female. In fact, current research conducted by [...]
