Physiotherapists in Gloucestershire treat many different conditions including the condition profiled below.

Fatigue or Tiredness - Managing the Condition

Fatigue is difficult to manage as the underlying cause is not clear and the pattern of the condition can be unpredictable. Patients are taught to manage their tiredness via behavioural techniques such resting, planning activity carefully and pacing to avoid overdoing at any one time. They may often do nothing for a day before they know they have to accomplish some physical task such as a visit to hospital or a social outing. Patients may also prioritise their activity strictly and work at concentrating on the normal aspects of life to keep things as natural as possible.

Patients may also solicit the help and support of those closest to them to cooperate in getting as much done as normally as they can, but despite all these things patients typically report that they cannot manage well and that the tiredness remains as bad as ever. Fatigue is not well recognised as important by many health workers and patients may feel that insufficient notice is paid to this very disabling part of their musculoskeletal condition. As the condition is difficult to manage there may be few helpful suggestions even if the health professional does recognise the importance of the symptom.

Frozen Shoulder

Frozen shoulder is a somewhat mysterious condition which afflicts people mostly in their middle years and can give high levels of pain and disability which can last over several years. Onset of frozen shoulder is typically sudden and may follow a minor shoulder injury or even a tweak on some unaccustomed movement which may not seem relevant. The initial phase is of steadily increasing pain which can be very severe and badly interfere with sleep. During this phase the shoulder is very difficult to move and the patient needs strong analgesia to get some rest and function normally.

Once the acutely painful period has passed the shoulder begins to lose range of movement, particularly lateral rotation, the ability to rotate the upper arm bone outwards. As the pain gradually reduces slowly the stiffness of the shoulder increases until the arm is just very stiff without much in the way of pain. Overall the process can last two years or more until the shoulder loosens up although full range of motion may never be recovered. On examination lateral rotation and elevation will be severely limited and the patient will often lift the whole shoulder girdle in an attempt to raise the arm.

Physiotherapists in Gloucestershire have contributed some of the many articles on this site such as the one extracted below.

Chronic back pain is a very important and costly condition in advanced industrial societies which is the chief cause of limitation of physical function in younger people under 45. The definition of chronic is variable and can be taken to be a pain persisting beyond the expected healing time of the tissues which may have been damaged in the acute back pain event. This is often taken to be beyond twelve weeks as much of the soft tissue healing will have occurred at that point. Acute pain serves a biological purpose to warn us to stop doing the aggravating activity and to take care of the injured part, however chronic pain appears to have no useful function. Back pain is a very widespread condition in the population and up to twenty percent may suffer from recurring or long term problems which are not greatly disabling. A smaller number of those people who get back pain, around five to seven percent, develop a long term pain problem which interferes with work and activity. Surgical proce...

more How Acute Back Pain Becomes Chronic