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

The Upper Neck

The upper neck or cervical spine is specialised in its anatomy and function as it has to bear the weight of the head and allow the head to be moved into any position for our sensory organs to receive the information they need. The two upper vertebrae, the atlas and the axis, have a specialised anatomical structure which is designed to satisfy the needs of head positioning in many functions. The upper vertebra, the atlas, has no body and is a bony ring with large facet joints to articulate with the facet joints of the lowest part of the skull, the occiput.

The second vertebra, the axis, has .captured. the body part of the vertebra above and has a upwardly protruding pin called the dens (latin for tooth) which forms a joint with part of the atlas above and also with a ligament which runs round it. The integrity of this joint is very important and if the dens is fractured or the ligament becomes slack then there can be a risk of damage to the spinal cord with death or quadriplegia. For this reason in any patient who may have suffered head or neck trauma the dens is x-rayed and checked carefully.

Physiotherapy Ultrasound

Ultrasound therapy is one of the large number of treatment techniques available to physiotherapists in treating the variety of conditions their patients present with. The frequencies used are in the range of 0.8 to 3.0 Megahertz, with a metal head used to generate the ultrasonic waves and ultrasound gel used between the skin and the head to facilitate transmission. A crystal in the head generates the waves by high frequency vibration and the waves pass through the gel and into the patient.s tissues to cause their effects. A local deep heating effect can be generated but this is typically not desirable so the machine head is kept moving and the settings may be set to pulsed mode so the beam of ultrasound is not continuous. This allows cooling and prevents heat build-up.

The effects of ultrasound can be many, including increasing the local blood flow, breaking down scar tissue or inhibiting its formation, a reduction in local swelling and inflammation. The physiotherapist will determine the size of the area to be treated and its tissue depth, choosing the size of machine head and the frequency and pulsed mode as appropriate. Higher doses and longer times are used for more chronic cases with the reverse for acute inflammatory conditions.