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A therapist’s guide to Postural Analysis

Understanding a patient’s posture is a major goal for a Physical Therapist for many conditions.  A physical therapist performs postural analysis or posture assessment to determine proper anatomical alignment or posture to identify any abnormalities.   A proper/ normal posture ensures an even balance of the body and prevents a specific set of core muscles from getting overworked.   You may have heard about poor posture or an incorrect posture, and I also published a series of articles talking about different stretches to correct the upper body posture (neck, scapula, and chest).  Physical therapists always look for abnormalities to determine the imbalances that need a fix.

Our body is amazing, it automatically finds a way to compensate for a weakness, imbalance or pain. It starts favoring one side vs other, or few muscles vs others. When this happens, our posture gradually changes. Over time, this becomes obvious. In addition, using few muscles more than other starts to become uncomfortable and painful.  The postural imbalance also causes problems like a muscle spasm, and or bony changes (in chronic cases).

So, let’s talk about what a correct or ideal posture looks like.

postural analysis Continue reading “A therapist’s guide to Postural Analysis”

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Scapula movements : Important Exercises to correct the Posture

Scapula or shoulder blades play a pivotal part in maintaining a proper posture.  In turn, movements and stretching of the scapula are crucial for posture correction.   No one likes to see a tall healthy person with rounded shoulder or humped back. Yes, if there is a medical issue and it is not fixable than that is a different story.  But, a healthy person will not make a good impression (especially the first one) with poor posture. Continue reading “Scapula movements : Important Exercises to correct the Posture”

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Chest Stretches for Posture Correction

Chest stretches and opening exercises are useful in improving the breathing pattern, correct muscle imbalance, and boost proper posture.  Moreover, chest stretches also help relieve stress and help relax the body.  Stretching exercises are usually pleasant if done correctly following expert guidelines. Lengthening a shortened or tightened muscle also relieves muscle tension and reduces pain.

 

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Posture Correction: Neck Stretch and Isometric Exercise

The neck position is crucial to achieve a  proper posture. It’s been said that the “first impression is the last impression”. I know it may not be true 100% but your first impression plays a vital role in several things. The way you carry yourself carries around 70 % to 80% of weight in that first impression. So, I want to dedicate a series of articles on postural correction exercises. I am going to talk about upper body posture and exercises for neck, chest and upper back in this series.

Neck stretches and exercises are important to reduce neck pain, tightness and to improve posture. In this era of computers and phones, many of us are constantly in front of a screen, which creates either forward head posture or computer neck.  I want to dedicate this article to all the computer savvy readers whose neck is working overtime all the time (with no bonus)!!

neck exercises

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Having Back Pain? Here are 7 Simple Stretches to Relieve Back Pain

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The aim of this article is to talk about some important stretches for low back pain.  I talked about Sciatic nerve pain as well as low back pain in my previous articles.   In this article, I focus on combination stretching exercises to reduce sciatica pain as well as low back pain.   The stretches below will help alleviate the pain on both the left and right side.  So let’s get started!!

Stretching exercises are necessary for many ways. An athlete needs to stretch his/her muscles prior and after any workout. A recreational player needs stretching to avoid any DOMS (Delayed onset of Muscle Soreness). A person who is exercising to gain muscle strength also needs to stretch the muscles after his exercise regime. A person suffering from injury or back pain stretches the muscles just to feel better.    No matter what level a person is at for exercises, they need to stretch the muscles. Stretching is done for the whole body and all muscles.

Continue reading “Having Back Pain? Here are 7 Simple Stretches to Relieve Back Pain”

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Seven Knee Exercises to Improve Strength

I talked about Knee arthritis in detail in my previous article.   Today, I want to discuss important knee exercises.  The aim of exercises for arthritis is mainly to ease the (knee) pain and increase muscle strength.   If the muscles surrounding a joint are strong than your joints are protected and well-cushioned. A person is less likely to put more force on a joint when he or she has strong muscles. This is not only true for knee arthritis but works similarly for pain, tendon or ligaments tear, any post and pre-operative surgery of a joint, etc.. Exercise is your answer. Remember, there are thousands (not literally of course) different exercises you can do for knee and there are a million modifications (again no literally) can be made in positions, adding weight or not, making it more challenging vs not. The aim here is to discuss the most important exercises for the knee. These are kind of your MUST DO to achieve higher strength and reduce pain. So let’s start!! Continue reading “Seven Knee Exercises to Improve Strength”

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Effects of Exercise on Body – Importance of being Active

Effects of Exercise

I talk about what kind of exercise we should do with different pathology. I often discuss exercises as a prevention method. In this website, I also wrote a few articles on career development for physical therapists and student physical therapists. What I still have to do is, to talk about the effects of exercises!! Why do we need to work hard to do something called “exercise or work out” (unless you are like me who enjoys that sweaty hour followed by body ache!). What does exercise do to our body, bones, muscles, soft tissues, etc.. Important to know, isn’t it? So here is to the main effects of exercise.

Yoga
Effects of Exercise on our body

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Effects of Food on our Body

Often, I  talk about prevention measures of a pathology. One of my favorite topics is eating healthy food and having a balanced diet as a preventative measure. After all, your body becomes what you put into it and what you do with it! So many times, I hear people talking about eating particular food upsets their body, or flares up the symptoms. Contradictory, eating different kind of food (a healthier version of course) helps a person to feel better and reduces the symptoms. Since this is becoming so common, I want to dedicate this article on nutrition. Nutrition is basically what we feed our body. It is how our body gets energy. Once we start going into detail about nutrition, it is easy to understand how a different source of diet affects our organs and so our health!!  

Food and Nutrition Continue reading “Effects of Food on our Body”

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A Physical Therapist Guide to Treat and Manage Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)

Congestive heart failure is a series of conditions when cardiac output cannot meet the metabolic demand of the body. Approximately 5 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). More than half a million people are diagnosed annually. Heart failure is mainly due to a structural or functional defect in the heart. The aim of this article is to talk about the role of physical therapy and the importance of an exercise regime in patients with congestive heart failure.Congestive Heart Failure

Continue reading “A Physical Therapist Guide to Treat and Manage Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)”

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Causes of Chronic Back Pain and Physical Therapy Exercises for Treatment and Prevention

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Chronic back pain is a very common symptom among healthcare and non-healthcare professionals. More than 70% of time people visit their primary care physicians with a complaint of low back pain. The reason for low back pain varies. It can be wrong posture, work habits,  lack of exercise, poor muscle control, to some structural, physiological or psychosocial changes!!  a person can complain of pain on the entire back or on one side.  The aim of this article is to talk about the common causes of low back pain and some treatment approaches.

physical therapy for low back pain Continue reading “Causes of Chronic Back Pain and Physical Therapy Exercises for Treatment and Prevention”

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Sciatica pain – Prevent and Treat Sciatic Nerve Pain

Sciatica pain affects a wide range of the population.   The pain can show itself as numbness and be tingling in a leg, starting usually from low back or buttock area, going down to thigh, knee or all the way to the ankle, usually one side of body… unable to sit, stand or walk without pain.   As a physical therapist, I meet at least two to four people a day who complains of sciatic pain – and they are not necessarily my patients, but my colleagues, my friends, relatives of my patients, my family members and a few of my readers. Sciatica affects young age, middle age, and old age people. And how can I forget wonderful pregnancy and Sciatica?  So, today, let’s talk about what is Sciatic Pain and how physical therapy can help to treat it.

sciatica Continue reading “Sciatica pain – Prevent and Treat Sciatic Nerve Pain”

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A comprehensive guide to different types of transfer in Physical Therapy

There are many types of transfer a clinician can guide a patient to perform.  As physical therapists, we come across different people with different limitation and abilities. While providing a PT treatment or assessing the patient, our goal (along with patients and families) is to make our patients independent in the majority of functional tasks.

Types of transfer Continue reading “A comprehensive guide to different types of transfer in Physical Therapy”

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Physical Therapy to Treat TBI : Treatment Approaches for Brain Injury Cases

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is anything that can impact the normal function of a brain after birth (mostly caused due to an accident).  Rehab treatment approach varies as per what stage and how fresh the brain injury (TBI) is. It also depends on the therapist’s experience level and belief in the treatment approach. For me, not one approach is a gold standard or right than others. I have also experienced that treatment approaches vary depending on the patient’s prior level of function, age and comfort level. TBI

Some treatment will give excellent results with one patient while the other patient may complain of pain or discomfort with that same method. So the goal of this blog is to discuss some basic methods that therapists use to treat TBI patients. I will try to keep it real simple so not only therapists but other readers can also get some knowledge out of this article.  I discuss types and etiology of TBI here. The other thing to keep in mind is, the same treatment method can be used as the main treatment approach versus just a preventive measure depending on the acuity of an injury. So let’s talk about treatment methods for TBI patients. Continue reading “Physical Therapy to Treat TBI : Treatment Approaches for Brain Injury Cases”

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What is Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Since I work with brain injury patients, Traumatic Brain Injury is my favorite topic to discuss and write. For me, it is difficult to put down words on Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) as there is so much involved with TBI. But I also don’t want to write five pages long article and bore all my readers. So I am going to try to keep this a short and sweet article. In this article, I am going to discuss definition, types and some basic information on TBI. I discussed different treatment approaches to TBI here.  So let’s start! TBI

Brain injury is anything that can impact the normal function of a brain. An acquired brain injury is when an injury happens after birth. Here the brain is normally developed already.  There are two types of acquired brain injury: Traumatic and non-traumatic brain injury. Continue reading “What is Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)”