Physiotherapy Articles

Despite being the most commonly incurred sports injury with a high recurrence rate, there are no guidelines to inform return to sport (RTS) decisions following acute lateral ankle sprain injuries. We aimed to develop a list of assessment items to address this gap. 

Expert opinion indicated that pain severity, ankle impairments, sensorimotor control, athlete perception/readiness and sport/functional performance should be assessed to inform the RTS decision following an acute lateral ankle sprain injury.

In this on-line course, we use a PNI lens to understand and describe the complex influences of biology and psychology on inflammation.  Inflammation is an underlying etiological factor in many chronic diseases.

A brief description of brain-immune communication is first introduced as background, followed by a summary of inflammation's effect on health. 

The biological, psychological, and psychosocial influences on inflammation are then discussed, followed by a review of inflammation and cellular aging.

Loss of range of movement (ROM) is a common outcome following injuries. The problem is that traditional stretching methods are often ineffective in improving ROM, let alone reducing pain and disability in various conditions -particularly where multi structure impairment is present.

SO, WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Kinesiologist Aaron Mattes has developed a solution to deal with the problem.

It's called DOS and it's a lot more than a stretching method.

This course will show you how to use DOS and its three evidence-based pain relieving modalities. DOS will increase your patients? tolerance to pain while stretching and so improve their ROM.

This on-line course demonstrates a clinically significant positive relationship between the use of a custom thermoplastic orthosis and the subjective reduction of pain and objective stage of stenosis tenosynovitis outcome measure for patients who have isolated trigger finger, multiple trigger fingers, or trigger thumb.

It also demonstrated an 87% success rate among patients who required no further intervention in the year after orthosis application.  Custom-orthosis treatment is a low-cost, easily applied intervention that may provide patients with long-term relief of trigger finger.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a disorder that manifests in childhood with symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and/or inattention. The symptoms affect cognitive, academic, behavioral, emotional, and social functioning.  This topic review focuses on the clinical features and evaluation of ADHD.

This illustrated Dry Needling online course covers:

• the clinical presentation of TrPs in head and neck pain syndromes

• trigger points (TrPs) in neck pain populations

Illustration and needling instructions of Dry Needling techniques for the following neck muscles are provided:

• Trapezius muscle: upper portion

• Levator scapulae muscle

• Sternocleidomastoid muscle

• Splenius capitis muscle

• Splenius cervicis muscle

• Semispinalis capitis and cervicis muscles

• Suboccipital muscles

• Cervical multifidi muscle

• Scalene muscles

Their anatomy, function, innervation and contra-indications for Dry Needling are also included.

Matching a foot and shoe is a process that requires thought, scientific measurement, and rationale. Though the research on shoe selection is still incomplete, shoe selection based on foot structure and measures of forefoot orientation, arch height and rear foot standing posture can aid in injury prevention.

This course offers information on the types of running shoes, a rationale and overall paradigm for shoe fitting using scientific methodology, as well as scientific literature related to orthotics.

Part 2 includes: Degenerative Facet and Ligamentous changes, Instability, Disc Herniation and Spinal Stenosis.

Disk degeneration is a complex subject as it could involve mechanical, traumatic, nutritional, and genetic factors. Complicating matters still further is the fact that the presence of degenerative change is by no means an indicator of symptoms or the level of pain experienced by the patient.

What role does imaging play in this scenario? Is it only to provide accurate morphologic information which could influence therapeutic decision making? Or is there more that therapists can and should be doing to provide their patients with the most appropriate treatment possible?

This course will provide some fresh answers.

The health care profession-patient relationship is the cornerstone of medical practice and therefore of medical ethics.

This on-line course will discuss:

• Respect and equal treatment

• Ending a patient-HP relationship

• HIV/AIDS

• Sexual attraction

• Treating family members

• Communication & consent, case study #1 included

• Obstacles for good communication plus case study #2

• Abusing medical resources including case study #3

• Futile treatment