Physiotherapists in Gravesend

Physiotherapy in Gravesend

Gravesend physiotherapists treat a variety of issues including lower back pain and also spinal stenosis among many others.

Finding a physiotherapist in Gravesend is easy with the Physiotherapy Site. The Physiotherapy Site confirms the Health Professions Council registration details of all physiotherapists listed on the site. The practitioners are, in almost all cases, also members of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy which is a professional member organization with its own high standards. The physiotherapists have a minimum of 5 years experience, although most have in excess of 10 years post-qualification experience. Our helpful team will advise clinic opening hours and arrange an appointment with you at a convenient time with a local clinic.

Physiotherapists in Gravesend treat many different issues including the condition profiled below.

Intervertebral Discs and Ageing

Ageing starts early in the discs and proceeds through life. Initially a loss of proteoglycan occurs, and as these chemicals attract and hold water into the centre of the discs, a degree of loss of hydration steadily occurs. The collagenous tissues lose some of their suppleness and resistance, becoming more brittle and more likely to suffer injury. As the discs have no central blood supply and rely on nutrition and oxygen diffusing in, a limitation of this process will accelerate the degenerative process going on in the disc centres. The tops and bottoms of the vertebrae, the endplates, are cartilage but can become calcified, further reducing supplies to the nucleus inside.

The outer part of the disc, the annulus, has layers of collagen material and these thicken and can develop defects. Overall the central disc material becomes drier, fibrosed and stiffer with a smaller volume as it loses water, throwing compressive forces onto the back of the disc annulus. The annulus becomes both stiffer and weaker with age, the increased stiffness perhaps offset by the increase in defects in the disc wall with time. Studies of discs have shown that they do not generally decrease in height with age.