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

Hand Injuries - Acute Management

Most injuries, apart from the most minor, benefit from being seen and assessed by a doctor as a relatively minor dysfunction in the hand can cause long term functional disability. Initial management of a hand injury should be to control any bleeding by applying gauze or a clean cloth to the wound and putting some pressure on it. In a closed injury (i.e. no wound) then ice can be applied to the damaged area to reduce inflammation and pain. Jewellery such as rings needs to be immediately removed as hand swelling can be very dramatic, rendering easy removal later impossible.

Once in the Emergency Department the doctor will x-ray the hand routinely and may inject the nerve at the wrist level or at the base of one of the fingers to numb the hand or the finger so that they can examine the area without too much pain. Wounds will be cleaned if they are dirty and then closed by stitching or a related method, with antibiotics prescribed to prevent infection developing. Splinting is often used to immobilise the hand in a specific position to prevent further injury or maintain anatomical integrity. A referral to a hand specialist or a plastic surgeon is typically written and pain control medication will be encouraged for a few days.

Calf Muscle Tears

The calf muscles are large and powerful muscles in the lower leg, the main ones being named the gastrocnemius and soleus. These muscles push the body weight along in gait and help us run, exerting very high forces in the process. If the forces exerted by someone in a powerful activity exceed the ability of the calf muscle to cope then an muscle tear results. A tear of the calf muscle occurs very suddenly and is extremely painful, with swelling developing very quickly. The person is unable to put their heel down as it is much too painful to stretch the calf that way and they often walk on tiptoe if they can weight beat at all.

Physiotherapy treatment initially aims at reducing the pain and swelling with ice, compression and the provision of walking aids to reduce the stresses through the calf. Analgesics are also useful and once the pain has reduced then active movement of the foot in a downwards direction can start contracting the muscles again. Once the foot can be placed flat on the floor then normal gait can be encouraged with a heel raise in the shoe to prevent stretching. Muscle strengthening can then be prescribed by the physio as rehabilitation proceeds.

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

There is a greater need for increased numbers of physiotherapists now than there has ever been. More and more aspects of people''s health have been shown to be amenable to improvement by physiotherapy interventions, with exercise as the main focus. The range of physiotherapy interventions is very great, covering the whole span of medical specialties from obstetrics and the newborn to the elderly, respiratory to orthopaedics, neurology to pain management. This wide spread allows a very great choice of specialised areas to work in and provides good opportunities for finding a fulfilling career.The changes in modern living standards and the constant developments in modern medicine have accelerated the changes in physiotherapy as new areas of work have presented themselves, from working with overweight adults and children, promoting exercise in cancer units, setting up exercise programmes for kidney patients on dialysis and in rehabilitation programmes for those with cardiac and pulmonary ...

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