Many of my Fibromyalgia patients have multiple complaints of musculoskeletal pain, especially back and neck pain, that can make even routine daily activities seem daunting. I just read an encouraging article by a group of Swedish researchers who found that high intensity Nordic walking for 20 minutes twice a week “significantly boosted function without any exacerbation [...]
Tag Archives: physical therapy
Back strengthening exercise: Multifidus strengthening on hands and knees.
March 16, 2011 – 4:55 PM
If you’ve seen me in the clinic, you know one of my favorite back strengthening exercises is the quadruped, alternating arm and leg lifts with a 3-5 second hold. Make sure you are stable before you began your 3-5 second hold. Much research has been done on the multifidus musculature and for many of those [...]
Making the case for static stretching
February 8, 2011 – 7:35 AM
By now you should have heard about the importance of “dynamic” or “active” stretching before a work out or vigorous physical activity versus the old “static” stretching variety. (If you haven’t you should read more). If you know what I’m talking about, you can skip to the next paragraph. If not, let me get you [...]
Environmental Adaptations
January 27, 2011 – 11:21 PM
It was a simple question posed by a patient last week. “What do you think about installing a railing next to the toilet?” Why, I asked. “Well, it’s getting harder to lift myself up and I thought if I had one of those hospital bars, I could use my arms to help pull myself up”. [...]
Careful what you say
June 16, 2010 – 7:16 AM
Words are powerful. They can healing but also hurtful. Most people in the health care profession understand this intuitively. Even if your body is injured, you cannot complain about your body as being “bad” or use phrases such as ”my terrible shoulder” or “my neck is really screwed up” and then expect to recover in the shortest amount of time. My patients [...]