big10fan

Wanted to spend a little time on a subject that I feel is undervalued by many in the rehab industry, trigger points. Check the bottom of this post for links, as the anatomy of the subject is worth many pages alone. There is some debate in the medical community on how significant a role trigger points play as a cause of musculoskeletal pain, but most PT’s and physicians recognize that trigger points are something to be considered, especially in cases of chronic pain.

First, a working...

I haven’t had a patient yet that doesn’t know it is important to stretch. But not many know why, and it seems even fewer know how to stretch correctly. First, lets cover the why. Most soft tissue injuries I see in the clinic involve either hyper or hypomobility, meaning there is either excessive or restricted motion in a joint. This can be from something inside the joint like unusually lax ligaments (hypermobility) or something like scar tissue restricting the joint (hypomobility). The greater...

First off, before we get too far into this, it is important to note that sciatica is a set of symptoms and not a true diagnosis. Just like how low back pain is a symptom, but can have many different causes, so is the case with sciatica. And if you have it or have had it, you know it can be a real pain in the butt!

Lets start with some of the main symptoms of sciatica. Most of the clients that I've worked with display a very typical pattern of pain. It usually starts in the SI...

I wanted to diverge a bit from the "normal" things you see in rehab and spend a little time on a very misunderstood topic: concussions. Recently I had the privilege to attend a sports medicine conference where I was able to listen to an expert in the field of concussions, Dr Kevin Guskiewicz from the University of North Carolina. He has been conducting research there over the last six years using specialized sensors in the football players' helmets and measuring impact forces during play....

Tendonitis (literally tendon inflammation - itis) is an inflammatory reaction of a tendon due to repetitive trauma (overuse). Tendonitis is often confused with tendinosis, which is also a damaging of the tendon, but without the inflammation. There is significant disagreement in parts of the medical community on whether what is commonly thought of as tendonitis is actually tendonosis. This post will focus on the traditional definition, but with reservations that there is still much research to...