Chronic/Re-current Injuries
Do you have a recurrent injury that just keeps coming back to interrupt your training/impede your ability to participate in the activities you want to do? At Active Steps Physiotherapy we aim to get to the bottom of this problem so that the frequency of this disruption is reduced/resolved.
It may be a hamstring that plays up every time you try and increase your running distance past 10km’s, it may be a shoulder that gets sore when you try and return to upper body weights at the gym, even if its not heavy weights you are lifting! It may be low back pain that is triggered by small bouts of gardening.
Do you have a recurrent injury that just keeps coming back to interrupt your training/impede your ability to participate in the activities you want to do? At Active Steps Physiotherapy we aim to get to the bottom of this problem so that the frequency of this disruption is reduced/resolved. It may be a hamstring that plays up every time you try and increase your running distance past 10km’s, it may be a shoulder that gets sore when you try and return to upper body weights at the gym, even if its not heavy weights you are lifting! It may be low back pain that is triggered by small bouts of gardening.
At Active Steps Physiotherapy our philosophy is that the cause of chronic conditions must be identified and diagnosed, and then treatment must address this cause. We do not just treat the symptoms! Just treating the symptoms results in short term relief of pain/dysfunction, which soon returns upon cessation of treatment.
Kristen has trained extensively with Dr L.J. Lee in the The Integrated Systems Model (ISM) and is one of only 20 physio’s within Australia to have completed level 4 of the ISM training. The ISM is all about identifying and diagnosing the ‘driver’ of your problem and treating it. SO many times Kristen has had patients who have had years of regular treatment on their “sore whatever” and while ever they are having this area treated it is OK, but as soon as treatment ceases or their training changes/increases then the ‘problem returns’. Treating the cause and not the symptoms is what the ISM is all about. This requires a detailed in-depth assessment focussing on what it is you want/need to achieve (whether that be being able to garden without putting your back ‘out’, or completing a half marathon), and then identifying what it is that is preventing you performing the task without injuring yourself.
Once the cause of the problem is identified manual therapy and movement re-training is implemented. Sometimes after years of trying to train/exercise and not ‘upset’ your recurrent injury you have adapted how you move/live within your body and these adaptions go on to create their own problems! The body is very adaptable and accommodating but there is a limit to how much/how long it can do this for before it can no longer help you out, and you can no longer avoid your nagging old issue/injury. Sometimes it takes a little time to get to the “cause” because it is so buried within the body with layer upon layer of compensation over years hiding the root cause. It can be like an onion which needs to be peeled, one layer at a time until you reach the centre.
Once the true cause of the problem is identified and treated your chronic injury/problem should be a thing of the past!