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

Hypermobility

We are all born with a genetically determined type of fibrous tissue, the collagen material that makes us all or most of our ligaments, tendons, skin and discs. Our collagen varies greatly in the amount of extensibility it allows due partly due to the amount of elastic material included and the length of our tissues. Normal mobility varies from stiff jointed to very mobile and individuals who show very high degrees of flexibility of their joints are termed hypermobile. Hypermobility may be asymptomatic or can cause significant pain problems in other cases. Benign hypermobility syndrome BHS is diagnosed clinically by testing the patient's joint mobility.

The diagnostic tests are: the little finger can be pulled back to 90 degrees to the hand; with the wrist bent the thumb can be pulled back to touch the forearm; the elbows extend back beyond neutral; the knees extend back beyond neutral and the person can bend over with the knees straight and place their palms on the floor. Each joint gets a score of one if positive and this gives a score out of nine. The score indicates the degree of hypermobility the patient is exhibiting and helps decide whether the joint condition is relevant.

The Structure of Bone

Bone is one of the body.s connective tissue and its cells produce a firm and rigid framework to make the skeleton of the body. It has a good blood supply and is surrounded by nerve endings which are mostly in the soft tissues which enclose the bone. Two types of bone exist, cortical bone which exists in solid masses or sheets and trabecular bone which is a lattice like honeycomb of small bone struts. The mass of bone secreted is five to eight percent water and 60-70 percent Hydroxyapatite, which is composed mostly of calcium and phosphate. The rest of the bone is made up of collagen, a form of fibrous tissue.

The crystals of Hydroxyapatite mean that bone is hard and can withstand compressive stresses while the fibrous tissue reduced the brittleness and resists tension stresses. Bone is laid down in an arrangement of concentric cylinders with a central channel carrying the blood vessels and nerves. The osteocytes or bone maintaining cells lie between the layers of bone. The whole unit of the individual cylinder is known as a Haversian system or an osteon. The periosteum covers the outer surface of the bone, with a tougher outer layer and a cellular inner layer.