Physiotherapists in Derby treat many different conditions including the issues profiled below.

Simple Neck Exercises . Three

Whilst simple neck exercises are extremely valuable to correct postural abnormalities, lengthen shortened structures and relieve painful neck problems it is important to use the correct technique to get the best from them. Incorrect technique can make the exercises effectively useless or even worsen the problem or cause injury. There are four basic directions of neck exercises: front and back (flexion and extension); side to side (side flexion); rotation; retraction (tucking the head in a bit like a chicken does when it walks). All these movements need to be performed to put the cervical structures through their full movement.

The structures which make up the body do not respond well to fast movement or great forces applied in very short time periods. The aim with simple neck exercises is to get the joints to the extremes of their movement and give a gentle end range stretch to the anatomy. To achieve this the movement needs to be steady and slow, without jerking, and held at the end with a bit of extra effort for a few seconds. It is also useful to do just one movement at a time, the common behaviour of rotating the neck in large circles being both more likely to aggravate the joints and not getting the full movement of any of them.

Common Causes of Disc Prolapse

Spinal surgeons know that most disc herniations they are required to operate on are mostly made up of nucleus pulposus and rarely consist of much of the annulus fibrosis, which never occurs alone in a prolapse. Typical actions which risk prolapse are lifting and carrying, imposing flexion, side bending and compression loads on the lumbar spine at the same time. Combinations of these forces are what make a prolapse more likely, such as falling on the bottom whilst the legs are straight out in front, combining compression and bending. Other combinations could include tripping and so bending forward whilst carrying, reaching forward to catch a heavy object or lifting something heavy after a period when the spine has been in flexion.

If the upper body is pulled forwards suddenly and a force applied this is the most risky posture as the back muscles are contracting most strongly to resist the forward movement at that time and so increasing the compression through the spine. Due to fact that the discs are tighter and more swollen with water in the morning, it seems that disc prolapse may be more likely to occur at this time. Repeated bending in heavy jobs could also cause prolapse with time.