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

Total Knee Replacement

Joint replacement is one of the most successful medical technical interventions with the highest quality of life improvements of any treatments. The most common reason for having a knee replacement is the occurrence of osteoarthritis, the typical age related joint change which occurs in many millions of people around the world. Osteoarthritis causes joint pain, stiffness, gradually increasing loss of range of movement and difficulties with walking, climbing stairs and rising from sitting. If conservative treatments are not successful and there is significant disability associated with continual pain and difficult sleeping then joint replacement may be considered.

In knee replacement the joint surfaces are replaced by stainless steels components and a plastic liner is inserted between them and on the back of the patella. The operation takes up to two hours and the person is typically seen and mobilised up into standing or walking the next day by the physiotherapist and an assistant. Rehabilitation with the physios is now very important, with exercise practice, gait supervision and functional activities. Length of stay in hospital varies between three and seven days with routine referral to physiotherapy on discharge to work on range of movement and strength.

Muscle Fibre Types

Muscle has three main fibre types which are specialised for different functional abilities. Type 1 muscle fibres, also known as slow twitch fibres, have a good capillary supply and use a mostly aerobic energy system. Type 2 fibres use a non-aerobic energy system more typically and in general the proportion of Type 1 to Type 2 fibres is fixed genetically in an individual. Muscle cells don.t turn over like many other body cells, the muscle continues for the life of the person. Muscles get larger and stronger by the individual muscle cells gaining mass and the number of muscle cells does not change.

Muscles are very adaptive tissues and can respond to altered work demands very much more quickly than other tissues, enabling us to build up the ability to do something new in a short time. The way the muscles are exercised has strong effects on the way muscles adapt to the new stresses. If endurance training is performed, with lower weights and higher repetitions, the largest changes are in the Type 1 slow twitch fibres which exhibit increases in their blood supply and in the enzyme systems which deliver energy. This allows these muscle fibres to contract for longer periods without tiring.