Choices of interventions for musculoskeletal pain syndromes: decrease pain, improve impairment, resolve dysfunction

There are multiple and varied interventions that can tackle the contributing factors of pain, impairment, and dysfunction that occurs with musculoskeletal pain syndromes. Pain impairs an individual’s ability to function Impairment is loss of use or derangement of any body part, organ system, or organ function. Dysfunction is an alteration of an individual’s capacity to…

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Sensory preference & learning optimal movement

There are many cognitive strategies to cue, prompt, and provide feedback to improve movement. Theory of focus of attention The dominant theory proposed by Gabriele Wulf and colleagues is providing cueing, prompting, or feedback to facilitate learning to move in a more optimal way is using an external focus of attention is more effective and…

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Butt pain – Isometric Exercises

“Butt Pain.” has different tissue diagnoses. Possible diagnoses are sciatica; piriformis syndrome; gluteal tendinopathy; hamstring tendinopathy; bursitis; hip arthritis; and others. There are many treatments for butt pain. My “go-to” exercise for butt pain is isometric contractions of the gluteal muscles. In my experience rarely is trying to “stretch it out” effective treatment for butt…

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Optimizing human movement requires clarity of description of movement

To know where you are going you must first know where you are. To optimize human movement, analysis of human movement is required. To identify optimal human movement clear qualitative and quantitative descriptions are needed. When describing human movement confusion occurs when we fail to clearly identify a frame of reference and reference point. A…

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Choice of feedback for learning new movements

A common practice when addressing painful musculoskeletal pain syndromes is the symptom modification procedure.  This procedure involves identifying the specific movement, posture, and/or activity that reproduces the patient’s symptoms. The symptom modification procedure alters performance. It is relatively quick as it occurs in one session. Altering performance is different than learning. An altered performance is…

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Gait Deviations Musculoskeletal Pain Syndromes: Is there a gait deviation or cluster of gait deviations which is common across musculoskeletal pain syndromes?

Gait deviations are considered risk factors and/or causative drivers for musculoskeletal pain syndromes. There is a growing body of research showing a relationship between gait deviations and musculoskeletal pain syndromes injuries: shin pain (here, & here,) ; patella-femoral arthralgia (here); IT band syndrome; Achilles pain; plantar heel pain (here, & here). There is growing consensus…

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Symptom modification of painful gait

Symptom modification procedure is common practice in the Physical Therapy profession. This procedure involves identifying the specific movement, posture, and/or activity that reproduces the patient’s symptoms. Historically diagnosis of musculoskeletal problems was based on examination which selectively provoked musculoskeletal tissues by compressing or stretching the various tissues to provoke the symptoms. This provided direction for…

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Analysis of Movement with Smartphone Video

Physical therapists are movement specialist according to the American Physical Therapy Association. Addressing issues related to the human movement system is what Physical Therapist do. The movement system is collection of systems (cardiovascular, pulmonary, endocrine, integumentary, nervous, and musculoskeletal) that interact to move the body or its component parts. Visual observation and analysis of movement…

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