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ACT Physiotherapy & Health ServicesBlog
By Amiras Ghori 0 Comments Therapy, Physio

Hip Pain

The hips are very commonly reported areas of discomfort. This pain becomes exceptionally common as people age, due to the “wear and tear” of cartilage in the hips, and lower back. However, people can also experience hip pain from overuse, injury, or underlying conditions, such as arthritis. Some cases may become severe enough that surgery is unavoidable; however, physiotherapy has been proven to treat hip pain without the need for pain-relieving drugs or surgery.

What are the causes of hip pain?

Arthritis:

  • Osteoarthritis (disease-causing the breakdown of joints)
  • Rheumatoid arthritis 
  • Septic arthritic 

hip pain

Injuries:

  • Bursitis (joint inflammation)
  • Dislocation/subluxation
  • Hip fracture
  • Hip labral tear
  • Inguinal hernia
  • Sprains
  • Tendinitis

Pinched nerves:

  • Meralgia paresthetica
  • Sacroiliitis
  • Sciatica 

Inflammatory:

  • Osteomyelitis (a bone infection)
  • Osteoporosis
  • Synovitis

How is hip pain determined?

Hip Joint Pain

When you schedule an appointment with a physiotherapist, the first thing you can expect is a thorough Assessment. Your physiotherapist will examine you to figure out where the painful area is, as well as where the pain is coming from. For example, sometimes pain is in the hips but it can be coming from the lower back, buttocks, or groins.

Pain can be from an acute injury or trauma such as ligament sprains or from the muscle strains, it can be also from the chronic joint, ligament of muscles dysfunction.

Hip pain is typically reported as a constant dull ache that doesn’t seem to go away that can be caused by the internal joint pain. 

Getting Started With Physiotherapy

As part of your evaluation process, your physiotherapist will do the following things;

  • Checking a range of motion – Your physiotherapist will check how your joint moves and how much they move
  • Checking strength – Testing the strength of hip muscles gives ideas about muscle imbalance.
  • Palpation – To Figure out where the pain is originating.
  • Gait analysis – Your physiotherapist will assess how you walk to determine if anything is out of the ordinary with your gait.
  • Your balance may also be checked.

Depending on your initial evaluation information, physiotherapists will be happy to help you with guiding proper exercises. Your prescribed exercises will help you strengthen the muscle structures around the knee or hip (or both) that’s bothering you and also help you to improve your mobility. Physiotherapists may use some modalities like ultrasound, laser therapy, Shockwave therapy or decompression to help you with the initial pain and inflammation. Your physiotherapist will work with you to monitor your progress and make sure you are on track to reaching your end goal. He or she will also encourage and support every achievement you make along the way!

knee pain
By Amiras Ghori 0 Comments Therapy, Physio

KNEE PAIN and INJURIES

knee pain

Knee pain can keep you away from moving and exercising. It can be challenging as it progresses further and affects your ability to walk and pain becomes constant and debilitating.

Most of us seek medical care right away for a serious injury causing knee pain, we tend to take far longer to address lingering pain or irritation that slowly develops. If your knees are aching, making sounds, swelling or feeling stiff for a while, it’s time to see your rehab professional.

Cause Knee Pain

Knee joint is composed of bone, ligaments, tendons, cartilage and muscles, and it is a very complex joint, a range of issues can affect your knees and cause different degrees of pain.

Here are some of the most common ones that can affect kids and adults.

Arthritis:

Arthritis is a one of the major reasons for knee pain. Two types of arthritis affect the knee joint most frequently:

  1. Osteoarthritis, which is the most common type of arthritis, happens when the cartilage that cushions the ends of your bones wears away. Without intact cartilage, bones rub against each other, causing pain and stiffness.
  2. Rheumatoid Arthritis, also known as “RA,” is a chronic inflammatory condition that develops when your immune system attacks a membrane that lines and lubricates joints. RA causes your joints to become swollen, unstable, painful and stiff.

Osgood-Schlatter Disease

Osgood-Schlatter disease develops most often during adolescence when growth spurts rapidly change muscles, tendons and other knee structures. Kids will feel pain below the kneecap because tendons that connect the knee to the shinbone become inflamed.

Physical activity puts more strain on the knee, so those who participate in sports with running and jumping are more at risk.

Weight Problems

Excess weight puts more stress on your knee joints and is a risk factor for arthritis.

Walking Issues

Gait issues, often caused by hip or foot problems, can affect your knees.

Overuse Injuries That Affect Knees

While exercising offers multiple health benefits, sometimes it leads to overuse injuries in your knees, which include the following conditions.

Bursitis

Bursitis usually happens when you experience a blow to your knee or fall, causing the bursa — the fluid-filled sac between your muscles — to swell and become irritated.

Tendinitis

Tendon inflammation is known as “tendinitis” and is most often caused by sports that require a lot of jumping, like basketball. Your knee will feel tender and painful to the touch when running, walking or jumping if you have tendinitis.

Strengthening muscles properly surround the knee and working on flexibility can prevent some knee injuries and conditions.

Iliotibial Band (ITB)Syndrome

Iliotibial band syndrome causes the band that runs along the outside of your legs from your hips to your knees, to rub against the bone and become inflamed or tight. Certain sports where your knees often bend, such as cycling, running, hiking or walking long distances, are more likely to cause IT band problems.

arthrocalman knee pain

Meniscus tears

Meniscus tears typically, give painful symptoms, such as a knee that slips, locks or feels extremely stiff.

Care for knee problems:

A detailed and thorough assessment by a physiotherapist or your health care professionals will help to identify the problem early and prevent it from getting worse and help you to improve faster. Therapeutic intervention like pain relieving modality, Ultrasound, LASER therapy will be useful to reduce your pain and inflammation, and graded exercises with help of a therapist will be useful to help you restore your strength and mobility.

Ankle Sprain
By Amiras Ghori 0 Comments Physio, Therapy, Work Injury

Ankle Pain Several Causes: Not All Are Same

Ankle Sprain

Most of us have experienced ankle pain at some point in our life by rolling the ankle by simply walking or hiking or while even playing sports. Many times, pain comes without any injuries or reasons and you wonder how that is possible.

Simple Ankle sprains:

As physiotherapists, we come across many simple ankle sprains or strains which simply heal well without any further problems, and that could be healed by the initial phase of Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation, and later on by exercise to strengthen muscles around the ankle in conjunction with modalities like LASER Therapy and ultrasound. Electrical stimulation can also be helpful to reduce swelling.

Non-Healing Ankle Sprain/Strains:

Ankle sprain which doesn’t heal properly can lead to the issue of sensory receptors (small organs located in the skin, tendon, muscles, and fascia) that transfer information to the brain. If the tendon or muscles continue to send wrong or non-meaningful information to the brain the chances of losing balance and re-injuries are very high. Fortunately, those kinds of cases can be treated by sensory re-education and decreasing receptor sensitivity with specialised techniques like P-DTR or Mckenzie Approach can be very useful if it is implemented by the certified therapist.

Ankle Derangement Mimicking Ligament Sprains:

There are some cases where actually pain or injury looks like ligament injury but it is just an ankle derangement that can lead to pain. Therapists who are specifically trained in repetitive movements examination can easily diagnose this kind of problems and help to give instant relief from pain and dysfunction. Many times, one or two sessions of proper education, mobilization and exercises are enough to help clients to achieve full recovery.

Ankle Pain Caused by Lower back Issues:

Third most common cause of the ankle pain or mimicking ankle pain is coming from spinal origins. Many times, compression on spinal nerves due to stenosis or disc injuries can lead to radiating pain in the ankle from the compression on Lumbar nerve root number 4,5 or Sacral 1 nerve root. It can be on one side or both sides of the ankle. Again, a complete spinal exam is always essential for any ankle pain, so we don’t miss any of the other diagnoses.