Hopes and dreams and getting FIT

It is the day after…. The day after Blue Monday. The, so called, most depressive day of the year. If you believe the story, everybody with great ideas/wishes for the coming year like losing weight, quit smoking, drinking less beer/wine have already given up hope in obtaining this goal.

My wish for the next year, which I haven’t given up on until now, is to integrate more active movement and exercises in treating my patients. During one of my latest assistances I heard a great sentence: “How many of your patients do you find physically fit?”

Honestly, a lot of patients aren’t physically fit. And if we know something for the research department on physical therapy, is that exercises in what ever form the might be presented are an effective way of treating a lot of complaints ranging from local motor control exercises to general fitness in more complex chronic pain states (Li 2018; Hall 2009; Ferreira 2007).

I was and still am, a big fan of the great variety of the passive movements we can apply to our individual patients (the technique still is the brainchild of ingenuity). However, it is well described in the book Maitland’s Vertebral Manipulation, that passive movements should be part of the whole rehabilitation process. They (the passive movements) can kickstart the rehab process for the individual patient (Hengeveld and Banks, 2014).

In the Netherlands, due to insurance obligations, we do not get a chance to fully guide the patient back to its former fitness or sport activities. But sometimes we do…

What I think is a practical and useful tool in clinical practice and for the patients is the next website:

https://theprehabguys.com/

You can find many exercises ranging from easy to difficult, from foot to shoulder. Please don’t bother if sometimes the explanation and theoretical bases isn’t really what we hope for in the Maitland Concept but the exercises are quite cool.

Enjoy watching and doing them!

Keep up with your hopes and dreams for 2018!

References
Hall L., Tsao H., MacDonald D., Coppieters M., Hodges P.W. (2009). Immediate effects of co-contraction training on motor control of the trunk muscles in people with recurrent low back pain. Journal of Electromyography and kinesiology. 19(5): 763-773

Li Y., Ko J., Walker M.A. et. al (2018). Does chronic ankle instability influence lower extremity muscle activation of females during landing? Journal of Electromyography and kinesiology. 38: 81-7

Ferreira M.L., Ferreira P.H., Latimer J., et. al (2007). Comparison of general exercise, motor control exercise and spinal manipulative therapy for chronic low back pain: A randomized trial. Pain. 131(1-2): 31-37.

Hengeveld E., Banks K. (2014). Maitland’s Vertebral Manipulation. 8th ed. Edinburgh: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone.

Comments

You are logged in as {{user.name}}

Name

Email

Your comment {{ comment.length }} / 2000

• {{ error[0] }}

Post Comment