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

Simple Neck Exercises . Two

Performing routine simple neck exercises every day fulfils a number of functions. It moves the joints through their normal ranges of movement and to the ends of the movement each time, an area where movement can be easily lost without us being aware of it. Movement also stretches out and maintains the length of the annulus of the cervical discs, pulling on the collagen and cartilage fibres of the disc walls. Muscles normally shorten when they are contracting and moving the joints of our bodies and if they are called upon to contract a lot in a particular position they can become more permanently shortened.

Range of movement exercises fully in the opposite direction can stretch out over tight muscles and allow them and the joints to return to more appropriate postural positions as part of a therapy programme. Since much of the use of the neck muscles is to maintain static posture of the head and shoulder area this exposes the head and neck area to long periods in poor positions with unhelpful patterns of muscle contraction. Neck exercises can be done routinely such as three times a day for a certain period or can be done regularly throughout the day to correct poor posture.

Repeated Loading of Lumbar Discs

Lower loads than the sudden compression loading which occurs seldom can cause a disc prolapse if the loading in a bent position is repeated in a cyclical manner. This can be caused in discs which are reasonably young and causes a large split in the rear of the disc wall to one side or another, allowing the central nuclear material to ooze out. In several examples the layers of the disc wall which were the most outer ones did not split and form a fissure and the nuclear material protruding through the fissure inside built up behind the remaining layers in a bulge. As the ligament overlying this has many nerve endings, such a bulge could cause pain.

Older discs were shown in some cases to have fissures which are already present before any experimental loading and these discs did not prolapse during the loading tests, perhaps because the fissures had healed or because discs in poorer condition are too stiff and fibrosed to prolapse. If twisting, side bending or compression is added to bending then prolapse can occur more easily with less bend of the back. In some cases the nucleus may protrude out but in others the outer disc walls can protrude themselves.

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

The large majority of the bodys joints, including the elbow, are capable of producing what are known as accessory movements, small sliding and gliding movements occurring inside a joint which a person cannot perform on their own. Accessory movements are vital for the normal use of a joint and are easily disrupted, limited or abolished by trauma or postural bodily misuse. The elbow accessory movements are very limited in size and consist of a small sideways gapping of the joint, which does not make a large difference to the ability to achieve various positions with the hand but does increase functional ability.These small movements may not look like they contribute much to the function of the elbow joint but they can. As we adjust the arm to grip something effectively the added movements of the elbow allow a slight lengthening of the wrist extensor muscles at times. A small amount of tension on a muscle enhances its ability to contract and increases its effectiveness, in this case the e...

more The Elbow " Part Two "