Physiotherapy Services

Sports injuries can involve a variety of musculoskeletal structures like muscles, ligaments, tendons and bones.

Sports injuries can occur due to many reasons including lack of warming up, improper form, overuse or over training or even just an accident.

The injury can be classified as an acute, or a chronic overuse injury, both requiring physiotherapy treatment.

Some of the acute sports injuries we treat include:

• Ankles:
  sprains, ligament tears, pain and stiffness
  
• Knees:
  ITB, runners knee, patellofemoral syndrome, ligament and meniscus tears, Anterior cruciate ligament physiotherapy rehabilitation
  
• Hips:
  impingement, piriformis syndrome, labrum tears, osteoarthritis
  
• Shoulders:
  rotator cuff impingement, tears & repairs, rotator cuff tendinitis, bursitis, frozen shoulder, pins and needles/numbness or altered sensation in the arm and hand
  
• Elbows/wrists:
  golfers elbow, tennis elbow or epicondylitis, carpel tunnel syndrome, fractures, de quevains tenosynovitis, hand injuries
  

Low back pain (LBP) is the one of the most common reasons for a person to visit a physician and affects nearly 60-80% of people throughout their lifetime.

There are many things that can cause back and neck pain, but some of the external factors are sitting and working with an incorrect posture, staying in the same position for too long and picking up something to heavy or awkwardly.

Some of the conditions most commonly seen are:

• Disc prolapse or disc bulge
  
• Degenerative disc disease
  
• Muscle spasm
  
• Facet joint narrowing & facet impingement
  
• Pinched nerves
  
• Sciatica
  
• Piriformis syndrome
  
• Sacroiliac joint stiffness and pain
  
• Posture, mal-alignment and repetitive strain
  
• Scoliosis, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Scheurmanns disease, Spondylolisthesis
  
• Nerve symptoms – numbness, pins & needles

Surgery is sometime needed, but is only the first step in your recovery. A guided rehabilitation program is essential to reach your optimal functional level post surgery. Our physiotherapists work within the guidelines provided by your surgeon to perform treatment and provide the best rehabilitation programme to get you back to where you want to be.

Common post operative conditions we treat:

• Knee replacement and arthroscopy
  
• Knee menisectomy
  
• Knee ligament repairs (ACL, MCL, LCL)
  
• Hip replacement
  
• Hip labrum repair
  
• Shoulder rotator cuff repairs
  
• Discectomy
  
• Laminectomy
  
• Spinal fusions

The loss of a lower limb has severe implications for an individual’s mobility, and their ability to perform activities of daily living. Many people may struggle to participate and integrate into society after they have had an amputation. A very large part of the rehabilitation process is to equip the person and his or her family with the relevant information on how to handle the situation. Guidance through the process with what to expect and what the next steps of rehabilitation will be has been reported to be vital for the amputee and helps to ease the recovery process.

The ultimate goal of amputee rehabilitation is to help the individual return to a high level of social reintegration. Rehabilitation may include learning how to successfully use a prosthesis, but for some it may be more of a hindrance to have a prosthesis and rehabilitation will then focus on achieving their highest level of mobility and assist with reintegration into their social community.

Rehabilitation usually starts immediately after the surgery, and even in some cases, before the amputation surgery. Amputees should perform pre-prosthetic exercises to help maintain range of motion and improve muscle strength in preparation for using the prosthetic limb.

The pre-operative rehabilitation process starts with an objective assessment looking at your range of motion and muscle power. Using the assessment findings, knowledge of prosthetic componentry and gait patterns, we can start putting together a treatment plan.

Pre-prosthetic physical therapy helps to prevent complications post-surgery and strengthen and prepare the patient for a prosthesis while the limb is healing.

Prosthetic gait training refers to once the person is fitted with a prosthesis, their treatment focuses on training for its use with specialised physical therapy to regain optimal mobility, increase endurance, and maximise function and comfort. This normally includes balance exercises, weight bearing activities on the prosthesis, gait training in parallel bars and with assistive devices and also learning to walk over different terrains.

Through initial thorough and comprehensive assessments, Annemie is able to provide accurate, concise and relevant opinions and reports for claimants or defendants, as well as joint minutes.

Medicolegal reports can advise, within the context of physiotherapy, the following:​

• Injury sustained
  
• Past, present and future functional capacity
  
• Present, future and ongoing physiotherapy rehabilitation needs
  
• Physiotherapy recommendations and costs
  
• Clear prognosis timescales
  

Areas of interest include:

• Rehabilitation
  
• Orthopaedic injury
  
• Amputations