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

Frozen Shoulder

Frozen shoulder is a troublesome and enigmatic condition which affects mostly middle aged people and causes significant pain and disability. As our shoulders age they become more vulnerable to injury or damage and in some cases this develops into the pain condition known as frozen shoulder. A sudden movement or small tweak of the shoulder may result in the area becoming more and more painful until the pain is very severe and interrupting sleep. This is the pain stage of frozen shoulder which is followed by the painful and stiff phase where the pain eases to some extent and the shoulder becomes restricted in movement.

Later in the process the pain recedes and the shoulder remains with just the joint stiffness so the person cannot lift their arm up far. The process may take two years or so to go through and the person may not regain their full shoulder movement. In the painful period physiotherapy is aimed at relieving the pain by gentle mobilisations and exercise and progressed to working at the joint stiffness as the pain recedes. Later physiotherapy involves stronger mobilisation techniques and stretching to ease out the strong soft tissue restrictions which have developed.

Losing and Gaining Muscle

Muscle is a dynamic tissue, changing greatly to accommodate to changing requirements. If a person.s leg is immobilised the thickness of the quadriceps muscle decreases by 15-20% in six weeks as the Type 1 muscle fibres reduce their protein production. This is the reason why immobilisation of a fracture or sprain is kept to an absolute minimum as losses of muscle and bone tissue are important, with joint stiffness another potential damaging side effect. Muscle will also respond quickly and strongly to increases in loading, with a maximum weight to be lifted increasing by 100% over a 12 month training period.

Much of the increased strength of muscle is due to hypertrophy of the muscle fibres, although other factors contributing are muscle endurance and learned coordination of the movement. A 30% increase of muscle mass can occur in four days after a muscle is overloaded in a stretched position, indicating the speed by which this part of the musculoskeletal system can adapt to new conditions. Exactly what makes muscles increase in strength is under discussion, but unexpectedly high activity, particularly in eccentric contractions, can cause the exercise induced damage which leads to repair and hypertrophy.