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

Core Stability for Back Pain

Treatments and management techniques for low back pain are very numerous and for most of them the evidence of effectiveness is either nil or not very great. Core stability comes into the category of a treatment which has some evidence for usefulness and for which there is ongoing scientific research. The spinal segments have a stabilising muscular system which keeps them in line with each other and prevent abnormal movement occurring between them which might cause problems. The three main muscle groups involved are the multifidus in the spine, the transversus abdominis in the abdomen and the pelvic floor.

Research has shown that these three groups work in concert and that if a back injury occurs then the multifidus muscles in the spine waste and do not recover spontaneously once the back pain has settled. However, working these core stability muscles at around 30 percent of their maximum capacity can restore the stabilising part of the spinal muscle group. Physiotherapists have researched this method and routinely prescribe core stability exercises for patients, understanding that good scientific evidence for longer term changes in spinal problems is not yet forthcoming. The technique is simple however, easily applied, reasonably logical and has few if any adverse side effects.

Shin Splints

Shin splints (also called medial tibial stress syndrome) is the name given to a complaint of pain and disability in the calf area, especially the anterior and lateral area, during sport or other heavy activity. Runners commonly exhibit this problem and the diagnosis of a stress fracture in the area needs to be excluded. This appears to be a chronic exertional syndrome related to compartment syndromes, where the relatively inextensible anatomical compartments in the leg suffer increased pressure due to increased vascular input. The exact reasons why this process leads to pain on activity have not been discovered.

Patients with shin splints complain of pain or tightness in the calf during exercise, with the pain being aching, burning or cramping. The affected part of the leg may feel full and this feeling gradually increase as the activity continues, being related to the degree of exertion or the length of time it is maintained for. Pain typically settles with rest and the person thinks the problem may then go away, but then it reoccurs when the activity is returned to. The leg may feel weak and under less obvious control, with pins and needles or other abnormal feelings possible in the region supplied by an involved nerve.