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

Pacing to Avoid Overdoing Activities in Chronic Pain

Patients with chronic pain very commonly push themselves hard to get things done, to complete the day to day activities they feel they must continue to perform. Unfortunately this almost always leads to a severe worsening of their pain, forcing them to rest in high levels of pain for several days. This pattern is commonly repeated again and again with the consequence that the person.s abilities tend to reduce over time as they become able to do less and less. This is known as the overdoing and under doing cycle, or activity cycling. It is a counterproductive cycle for pain sufferers, who can learn pacing their activities to their advantage.

Pacing changes the way activities are performed from a pain dependent state, where the person does the activity until pain stops them, to a time dependent state. This means they do an activity for a previously specified length of time then stop, not overdoing it at any one time. The person does the activity until they feel their pain worsen, records that time and then takes 20% off that time to give their quota. They are not allowed to go over their quota initially, to gain control of the activity.

Sciatica - Physiotherapy Examination

Sciatica is also known as nerve root pain, nerve root irritation, nerve root entrapment and slipped disc pain in the leg. True sciatica occurs when one of the nerve roots exiting the spinal canal is compromised, usually by a disc protrusion. The pain is typically severe, radiates down the leg beyond the knee, is worse in the lower leg or foot, has a surging quality and is worse with sitting or bending and better lying down. Physiotherapy examination starts with a history of the pain location and aggravating or easing factors and what were the precipitating factors for the pain problem.

The physio will examine the patient carefully as it is easy to aggravate the pain. Muscle power (as able), sensibility and reflexes will be tested to check the conduction of the nerve root involved and this should fit in with the area of pain reported. With the patient lying supine the affected leg will be raised with the leg straight to stretch the nerve and evaluate any changes in the pain reported. This neural tension test must provoke the typical pain to be positive. Palpation of the patient's spine may be performed in prone to evaluate the mobility or stiffness of the spinal segments.