I believe the fundamental stages required to get better
and overcome an injury are: correction, rehabilitation, maintenance and
resistance.
There's a lot to be gained from following the steps and
making sure that healing has occurred and chance of re-injury is limited:
Correction:
Correction entails moving the joints and vertebra back to
the most ideal position. To allow a vertebra to move the muscles automatically
change their tension, stiff muscles begin to relax and movement patterns begin
to change.
If appropriate correction does not occur we can examine
to find out why not.
Rehabilitation:
All spines degenerate over time; if it were possible to
transplant a perfect spine how long would it take before it started looking
like the former?
Traumatic injures and our habits cause stresses on our
spines and affect their position and structure.
A previously injured spine is more likely to resume
habits that may cause further damage.
Rehabilitation means changing our habits for the better
to prevent re injury.
Sitting, sleeping, standing, exercising, our movement
patterns and the way we time our muscle contractions whilst moving, how things
work when we're stressed or off balance.
Most of the time simple Ergonomic changes may be
implemented and have very favorable outcomes. Learning a new exercise or
technique can teach your body to function better and prevent reinjury can have
long term benefits.
The typical example is a mom who's had a C/section,
cutting through the abdominal muscles forces the body to use other muscles to
try and stabilize the spine the habit of using the wrong muscles is retained.
It takes a 5 minute exercise to feel the abdominal muscles work again. If this
is maintained it boomers the new habit.
These changes can be tested and monitored as improvement
occurs.
Maintenance:
How well the corrective and rehabilitative steps have
gone determines the required maintenance one may require to prevent a relapse
of a condition. If a you have a desk job and you hunch over a laptop all day
the likely hood of full recovery is limited without ergonomic improvement and
postural improvement, once posture is improved what schedule is required to
maintain it before it deteriorates again and symptoms reoccur.
We can test this with functional orthopedic tests and
exercises that require specific muscle recruitment. Improvement and Prognosis
can be measured and scheduling can be done accordingly.
Resistance.
In sports such as tennis
and golf it's often said that to make real gains in ones ability you
need to make your weaknesses strengths, if your volleys or short game are
weaknesses work at them until they're an asset to your game. Why not apply the
same logic to an injury; if your core muscles are weak don't just rehab them
until they work continue until they become an integral part of your
functioning.
There's and endless number of exercises that can
challenge your balance and stability, range of motion and control, the challenge
can be fun and again measurable outcomes can be rewarding.
If you'd like any help with Correction, Rehabilitation,
Maintenance or Resistance please don't hesitate to give me a call.
