Looking for physiotherapy treatment at your home or our clinic?
Recently found yourself injured after participating in sports, work, or from just playing around?
As a physiotherapist primary care practitioner, we are trained in diagnosing and treating all musculoskeletal injuries.
Early intervention and guidance are essential to facilitate a speedy recovery, full restoration of mobility and strength, and prevent long term repercussions post-injury.
Individual core strength and stability is promoted while identifying areas of muscular imbalance or altered timing of contraction that interfere with recovery.
In the instance of an acute injury hands on physiotherapy massage can be used in conjunction with controlled range of motion exercise to reduce joint swelling and prevent joint stiffness. Early treatment will also help promote a stronger repair, minimise tissue damage and provide for a quicker return to activity.
Chronic injuries develop when the body’s messages of niggling pain, tension or stiffness are ignored. Most don’t understand that pushing through pain has consequences.
A minor shoulder muscle or tendon injury for instance, can rapidly develop into a frozen shoulder that takes up to a year to recover. Our combination of acupuncture, gentle mobilisation, and guided exercises allow for reduced swelling in the early stages of injury and prevents complications later on. This allows you to smoothly and quickly return to your normal activities.
However, despite all your best efforts, sometimes pain can be stubborn, complex and widespread with multiple areas of trigger point tenderness often labelled chronic pain or fibromyalgia. This often goes hand in hand with joint pain and arthritis. This is when the discerning practitioner becomes the detective to dig deeper.
To identify hidden underlying drivers of pain and inflammation, perhaps we need to look at our busy lifestyle, insufficient nutrition or a lack of mobility post injury, or it might be a case of physical and emotional stress, toxic overload, poor gut health, no exercise, burning the candle at both ends and a lack of sleep.
Unfortunately, pain meds or anti-inflammatory drugs at best only mask symptoms short term while the fire still simmers within. Verona’s combination of hands on physiotherapy, gentle Japanese acupuncture and investigative nutritional medicine makes a difference even in the most difficult cases.
Injuries and conditions commonly seen in our clinic:
- Rotator Cuff
- Ankle Sprains
- Frozen Shoulder
- Tennis Elbow
- Sports Injuries
- Work Injuries
- Chronic pain
- Fibromyalgia
- Repetitive strain injuries
- Acute wry neck
- Neck pain & Headache
- Low Back Pain
- Sciatica
- Muscle injuries
- Ligament injuries
- Whiplash
- Patella (Knee cap) pain
- Knee Meniscal Injury
- Dance Injuries
- Hand & Wrist Injury
- Post fracture Rehab
- Post surgical Rehab
- Osteoporosis
- Arthritis
Relaxation Breathing for Life
Are you experiencing neck, thoracic, or lower back pain?
By assessing your ease of breathing, timing between your upper chest and diaphragm, we are able to help you ease these pains and even control feelings of stress and anxiety. This works by maximising the oxygen intake and works for asthma sufferers, athletes, and everyone in between.
As a Bradcliff Breathing method trained physiotherapist I can assess:
- If you have a shortened upper chest breathing pattern that doesn’t give your neck muscles a rest and drives chronic neck pain
- An upper chest breathing pattern that does not allow the diaphragm to do its job as a trunk core stabiliser in recovery from back injury
- Chronic hyperventilation in asthma sufferers and improve breathing control, reduce medication use and hospital admissions
- Breath control for speech in teachers, lawyers, public speaking, actors and singers to improve performance confidence
- Habitual mouth breathers with blocked noses or sinus problems and train methods to clear the nose and restore quiet nose breathing and better sleep
- Efficiency and strength of the diaphragm to provide maximal effort and control for sporting activities
- Areas of muscular load in the neck, shoulders, jaw or lower back due to an incorrect breathing pattern and poor posture
- Breathing rhythm to calm hyper arousal, the fight and flight response associated with chronic stress, anxiety, panic attacks and a heightened sympathetic state
Breathing links us to the world from birth to death. The principles of breathing control overlaps the teaching of mind-body awareness. Rigidity of the muscles of the thorax may reflect expressions of internal fear. Flexibility is as important for muscles as it is for social behaviour and confidence.
To book an appointment at our clinic or have a chat about how we can help you
One-on-One
Hydrotherapy
Hydrotherapy is prescriptive exercise carried out in the warm, chest deep spa pool at our Get a Life Physio Clinic.
Hydrotherapy sessions are one to one, and of 30 minutes duration. This ensures that a personalised water exercise program is provided. The warm chest deep water at 36 degrees allows for relaxation of muscle tension and stress, and comfortable exercising.
You are encouraged to return to the pool independently to practice your exercises between sessions and to help you improve faster. Even non-swimmers will be confident to do so after a few hydrotherapy sessions!
How does hydrotherapy work?
WARMTH
- Water temperature of our spa pool is 36° C.
- Provides a soothing environment to exercise.
- Relaxation of tense painful muscle knots.
- Softens joint fluids, muscle and ligament flexibility, and relieves pain. This promotes movement into range that may otherwise be painful on land.
WATER
- Provides buoyancy for reduced joint stress and can assist movement.
- Gives resistance through movement and aids the return of strength.
- Provides mild compressive force aiding removal of swelling and pain relief.
- The water environment is perfect for training core strength and fitness for a return to work or sport.
- When submerged in water there is a kind of weightlessness, as the water relieves your body of much of the effects of gravity.
- Water also has a hydrostatic massaging effect and offers resistance without stress. When it is moving, the water stimulates the touch receptors on your skin, increasing blood circulation and releasing tight muscles.
SPECIALISED EXERCISES
- As a musculoskeletal physiotherapist I am trained to identify your specific needs then implement an individualised water exercise programme, reassess its outcome and upgrade exercises accordingly.
- Our hydrotherapy program is supported by a complete in rooms assessment before starting in the pool.
- By being in the water with you, I can assist your mobility, mobilise stiff joints and muscles, and facilitate the flow of the spine and neural structures while you relax or float.
Have any other questions? Feel free to reach out for professional assistance
Conditions Suitable for Hydrotherapy
- Knee replacement Rehab
- Hip replacement Rehab
- Anxiety and stress
- Arthritis
- Running post Injury
- Knee injuries
- Shoulder injuries
- Neurological disorders
- Cerebral Palsy and Stroke
- Weight loss
- Neck and Back pain
- Sciatica
- Sports rehab
- Chronic pain
- Cardiac fitness
Infrared Sauna
At our clinic we have an infrared sauna to assist clients with detoxification challenges. Infrared saunas use infrared panels instead of conventional heat to easily penetrate human tissue. This means your body is heated up before heating up the air, so you don’t feel that exasperation of heat that you do in a conventional sauna.
This heat penetrates more deeply than warmed air, allowing you to experience a more intense sweat at a temperature that’s more comfortable.
The benefits of using an infrared sauna are like those experienced with a traditional sauna. These include:
- Better sleep
- Relaxation
- Detoxification of toxins and metals
- Weight loss
- Relief from sore muscles
- Relief from joint pain such as arthritis
- Clear and tighter skin
- Improved circulation and elimination of waste
- Help for people with chronic fatigue syndrome
Have further questions? Get in touch for professional assistance today.
How to Get Back to Work, Sport & Play Fast After Injury
Have you or a loved one experienced an injury that just seemed to linger on?
It’s frustrating seeing so many people enduring pain and suffering unnecessarily. Time and time again, people suffer from chronic aches and pains because their initial injury was poorly managed since onset.
Many live trapped in damaged bodies, forced to live an inactive lifestyle with limited mobility, muscles knotted up, and joints stiffened.
Living in constant fear of making the pain worse with exercise…
But in reality, they are making it worse by not exercising!
Read on to discover what you need to do to recover from injury and return to work, sport and play fast!
The DO’s Post Injury
- RICE, Rest, Ice, Compression & Elevation in the first 24-48 hours
- Get the right advice about your injury from a physiotherapist
- Early mobilization is key
- Eat a well-balanced diet with protein and mixed vegetables
- Supplement essential vitamins and minerals for repair
- Drink 2 litres of filtered water per day
The DON’Ts Post Injury
- Do NOT drink alcohol and soft drinks
- Limit your coffee intake to one cup per day max
- Minimise high sugar foods
- Avoid fast food takeaways
- Don’t shut down in response to pain
Alcohol promotes swelling and depletes essential nutrients. A few ales at the bar after the game can make a sprained ankle, a twisted knee or torn calf blow up like a balloon overnight.
Recently experienced an injury and need medical help? Get in touch now.
I’m told I should exercise, but it hurts. I don’t know what to do.
The correct management in the early stages post injury can make a huge difference to the eventual outcome.
To recover from injury without complication, it is very important to start mobilising as quickly as possible, and there are certain rules that need to be adhered to.
There is no need to fear pain. Pain can be your friend. Use it as a guide to gradually tease out mobility of painful or stiff muscles and joints.
Be confident in knowing that it is both OK and safe to move as long as the pain is not getting worse.
Exercise to the onset of pain, nudge the end of range for a few seconds, then back off, rest, and try again. Over time mobility will improve , you become stronger, and the pain will ease.
Remember, you will not cause further damage if the pain either remains the same or lessens.
What are the essentials for repair?
- Adequate hydration to move toxins away and bring nutrients to the repair site.
- Drink 2 litres of water each day, NOT tea, coffee, soft drinks or alcohol. Binge drinking and partying is out of the question if you want to recover quickly.
- 7-8 hours of quality sleep are essential for repair.
- You must be in deep sleep before 12 pm for the Liver to detoxify the body.
Good elimination from the bowel ensures clearance of waste from repair processes. If you are constipated, toxins accumulate and re-circulate throughout your body. It may be of help to use a gentle laxative, increase water intake, and take a probiotic to increase the good bugs in the bowel.
Most modern day diets are high in carbohydrates are low in essential vitamins and minerals. To repair, the body needs much more than the recommended daily intake. Supplementing with a multivitamin is a good idea.
- 60-100gm protein is needed each day for repair of bone, ligaments and muscles. We also need adequate zinc, calcium, magnesium, B vitamins, plus essential omega-3 fats (fish oil) to fortify cell membranes as tissues repair.
- 1 egg = 8gm of protein, so are you eating enough protein?
- Are you adequately absorbing the nutrients from your food? Over the age of 40 our digestion in the stomach starts to decline.
- A high carbohydrate diets also shut down digestion in the stomach and production of hormones, increases inflammation by stimulating insulin, and slow healing.
Diet and lifestyle choices have a direct effect on everyone’s ability to recover from injury, let alone a chronic injury or arthritis. We need to look at our busy lives, insufficient nutrition or lack of mobility in the early stages of recovery post injury, physical and emotional stress, toxic overload, poor gut health, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, and more.
Need help putting this all together? Get in touch with a professional today.
Say No to Pain
Pain alerts us of impending tissue injury. We get an immediate response and pull away. Pain is protective of further injury and hence serves a purpose. Without the sensation of pain, we would have no idea when we are hurting ourselves, and untold tissue damage could occur.
The problem starts when pain persists beyond the early protective stage of recovery post injury.
I frequently have clients present with pain, weeks or months post injury. Some have soldiered on, enduring pain and discomfort unaware of developing soft tissue contracture, muscle weakness and a loss of function.
Others have persistent pain despite tissue healing.
To get help to explore the underlying triggers of your pain and inflammation that may be slowing healing and heighten your pain sensitivity don’t hesitate to call.
Book an appointment at our clinic or contact us to have a chat about how we can help you
Are you in constant pain or discomfort and just want to feel normal again?
Regain your clarity, focus, and energy naturally at Get A Healthy Life
Find the root cause of your poor health and start living better today.