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

Anterior Cruciate Ligament Sprain (ACL)

The anterior cruciate ligament is one of the four major ligaments of the knee joint which stabilise the joint against inappropriate movement in all directions. The ACL crosses the joint from above to below and prevents the tibia (shin bone) from slipping forwards under the condyles of the femur or thigh bone. It is a very strong ligament and very important for knee stability in activities and sports. It is most commonly injured in non-contact situations when the person is changing direction quickly such as in cutting or side-stepping in sport but can also be injured in tackles and other interactions involving another person.

Many people who have had an ACL injury report that they heard their knee go .pop. at the time, accompanied by a severe pain and an inability to weight bear on the limb. The knee typically swells up very quickly, within minutes or hours, as it fills with blood from the injury due to the rupture of the blood vessels in the ligament. Initial treatment is to splint the knee and perhaps remove some of the blood from the joint by a needle. Due to the risk of arthritis developing, the main treatment is almost always surgical reconstruction of the ligament.

Hand Injuries

Hand injuries are very important as the hand is such a vital functional part of human anatomy, with an injury to the hand causing a significant degree of disability in the short term and potentially over the long term. The hand is exposed to a very large number of risks in normal and work life, from burns to cuts to crushing, which can cause a wide variation in injuries from soft tissue damage, tendon transection or rupture to fractures of any of the bones of the hand. In many cases several types of injury will coexist in the damaged hand.

Because our hands are the medium by which we interact with much of the world they are often placed in situations which render them vulnerable to injury. They are a combination of a large number of small bones and joints with complex ligamentous, tendinous and muscular components optimised to perform the multiple skilled manual functions we require. All the complex functioning of the hand results from the successful interplay of all the anatomical components working in very tight spaces. Any disruption of a part of the hand typically has knock on effects for the whole unit.