Low back pain is an umbrella term for pain conditions coming from any area of your lower back. Regardless of the type, back pain can interfere with all your daily activities and we can help. The nature and pattern of pain symptoms can vary widely. Sciatica, also called lumbar radiculopathy, can also involve pain that travels along nerve pathways into your legs. Because of this variability, careful examination is paramount. We use postural examination, active movement and passive mobility analysis, and special testing to develop a treatment plan and a pathway toward pain relief. Resetting proper balance of spinal joint mobility and dynamic muscular stability is often a key treatment component.

Neck pain has become a common complaint with so many working adults and students working at computer stations. The positional demands and inherent postural strain are real and can easily lead to irritation. It’s a unique set of challenges and we can help. Pain can remain in the neck or even travel into the upper back. As with all spinal conditions, posture, quality of active movement, and regional spinal mobility will be scrutinized in your examination. Resetting balanced joint mobility and dynamic stability to alleviate joint and tissue strain is paramount.

If you think about it, we normally enjoy a tremendous amount of freedom of movement in our shoulders allowing us to reach in nearly infinite directions. What we gain in joint mobility we sacrifice in support making the shoulder comparatively unstable and prone to irritation. Because our shoulder girdles rest on our upper core, posture deficits and the imbalances in shoulder mobility and strength can often be at the crux of shoulder pain problems. Regardless of whether your pain is chronic or you’ve had surgery, treatment seeks to re-establish these balances and achieve pain relief in a natural way: using manual and exercise therapies. If you are limited with your arm function, we can help you get back on track.

There are many different types of knee pain depending on the source or the tissues being affected. Injuries can come on as a result of trauma or can often develop over time or with physical activity. Factors such as leg alignment, fitness and conditioning (muscle function & flexibility), and degenerative changes must all be considered in the context of both assessing the problem and designing a treatment regimen that will eliminate your knee pain and get you back into action.

The structure and function of our feet and ankles and the way they get us from point A to point B is a wondrous thing. While developing a treatment strategy to eliminate your pain, we carefully assess these unique movement mechanics and consider all conditioning (range of motion/flexibility and strength) deficits that might be affecting them. Bone structure and foot type are also considered as is the need for footwear and/or inserts (orthotics). If an element of biomechanical rebalancing is needed, we give this priority as we proceed with addressing other treatment goals.

PT management of acute sports injuries will follow a similar framework of progression as treatment of post-surgical patients. Special attention will be paid to the mechanism of the injury to make note of potential causative factors. For purposes of reconditioning and return to play, sport-specific physical demands and even the athlete’s position or role on a team sport are considered. When appropriate, functional testing of movements and activities specific to the sport is performed to confirm readiness to return. Our goal is to get you back to play quickly — but safely.

Whether you’re dealing with hip pain, a wrist fracture, shin splints, or any other issue not mentioned above, we follow the same process. We review the mechanism of your injury, perform a thorough evaluation, and identify the clinical problems that are contributing to your pain or dysfunction. In all cases, we assess your problem in the context of the region where your pain or injury is located. This is because the cause of your problem and, many times, the effectiveness of your treatment, can be influenced by the performance of the joint below or above the location of your pain. Proper, pain-free function of the different parts of your body are dependent on each other. Bottom line: we have many years of experience helping people with the issues that are causing them pain. So even if your problem doesn’t fit into any of the categories outlined above, rest assured, we can help.