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

Chronic Neck Pain

The risk of long term neck pain and disability has been the subject of much investigation to try and stop this disabling, painful and costly condition developing. The warning signs which indicate a risk of developing this condition are known as yellow flags and are mostly to do with our understanding and emotional state. Physical factors are much less important unless they are very high levels of pain after an injury. Yellow flags include believing that the neck pain is due to serious injury or damage to the neck tissues; avoiding activity or movement due to fear of causing damage; resting excessively; waiting for a cure for the pain instead of working on it themselves; developing depression and becoming withdrawn; not improving over a couple of weeks; believing that hurt equals harm and that disability is likely.

These symptoms and attitudes can sneak up on someone so it is important to work at getting mobile and back to normal as soon as possible after injury or an episode of neck pain. It is useful to analyse how the recovery is going and take steps to fix any of the problems that the patient or an adviser identifies as relevant.

The Shoulder

The human shoulder is a design of great functional ability and ingenuity, designed entirely around placing our hands in the places we want them to be. The hand is the tool with which we connect with the world and we need to be able to place it in a great variety of positions so we can manipulate objects. The shoulder contributes to a very large extent to our ability to do this and to achieve this goal it has an extremely large range of motion permitting great flexibility. However, in satisfying the requirement for flexibility it sacrifices stability.

To allow the large range of motion the shoulder is designed with a relatively small socket and a very large ball, the head of the arm bone. The shoulder capsule, the fibrous ligamentous bag which surrounds and supports the joint, is relatively lax and contributes little to stability. The nervous and muscular systems have the job of keeping the large humeral head balanced on the small glenoid cavity (shoulder socket). The large shoulder muscles are more concerned with gross movements of the shoulder, and it is the rotator cuff muscles which perform much of the stabilising work of the joint.