At our practice, we address a broad array of conditions using physiotherapy. These include sports injuries, arthritis, headaches, musculoskeletal injuries, neurological conditions, and many others.
Physiotherapy treatment often involves therapeutic exercise to boost strength and increase range of motion and endurance. Treatment also can help to correct imbalances in posture and muscles.
What Our Process Involves
The initial step in the process is for our practitioner Stephen Hooper to evaluate your ‘Intake Forms’ to get a better understanding of what has brought you into the practice. Your health status also will be evaluated, and you will have the opportunity to ask further questions if needed. We’ll determine what your individual ‘Good Outcome’ is and create objective measures to demonstrate to both client and therapist that we are on the right track towards achieving this Good Outcome.
The next step is a thorough, full body assessment. Your nerves, muscles, joints, and other soft tissues will be examined. This information allows us to create a detailed summary table to highlight your particular challenges and is used to establish the treatment plan.
Treatment by Stephen will be geared towards improving movement around specific specific joints within your body. We use the term ‘dysfunction’ to represent a lack of movement at one or more joints within the body.
By helping your body to move better, Stephen can be confident that he is applying the proper treatments and having a positive effect on your brain and your body. After all of your movement patterns have been restored and you’re pain-free, you will be regarded as ‘clinically clear.’
20 years of clinical experience has allowed us to determine that clinically clear and functionally clear are not synonymous. For example, a client may have normal ankle, knee, hip, back, neck, and shoulder movement by the end of their treatment plan. However, that client may not be able to execute an overhead squat or lunge test. That’s why being clinically clear is insufficient. It’s essential to advance to the next stage of the (ES) Method – Functional Risk Assessment.
The Importance of Functioning Testing
The functional risk assessment is a detailed movement analysis. It leads to the creation of a risk profile – or in other words, a precise estimate of your risk of being injured through activity or sport. Through proper testing, Stephen can detect movement faults that may predispose you to injury. This type of functional testing is accurate and measurable. Equally important, it also can be utilised to reflect ‘true’ progress in a return to a sport or activity program.
With this information, Stephen can provide specific corrective exercises that will improve your movement patterns and reduce your injury risk. Re-assessment through the precise testing system will demonstrate to both client and therapist, that the desired progress is being made. (If you’re not assessing, you’re guessing)
Tune-Ups
With the unrelenting stresses and strains of our modern world, your body will require regular ‘tune-ups’ to keep it functioning optimally and symptom-free. The timing of these tune-ups will vary from client to client and is often dependent on the nature of the client’s work, their overall health (mental, emotional, spiritual, physical), and the type of training, sport or activities they participate in. Generally, Tune-Up consultations are required every 6-10 weeks and your personalized summary table is used for reassessment and to see how close you are to being ‘clinically clear’.
If you would like more information about our approach to providing physiotherapy, contact us today.