Have you ever opened your eyes to a new day only to notice that the room is spinning? Does the thought of riding on a roller-coaster or joining your kids in a tilt-a-whirl or teacups at Disney make you turn completely green with nausea? It's a terrible feeling. Maybe you haven’t had the spinning, but you constantly feel lightheaded, off balance, or just generally dizzy. In this article, I want to talk about a few of the reasons for dizziness and what to do about them. Often, your dizziness can be treated by a specially trained Physical Therapist (PT) after a thorough evaluation to diagnose the underlying cause.

When someone has scoliosis, the body has a pattern that is affected by the spinal rotation which is driving the curve. The spine is going to be a little more limited in some areas than others. Even though scoliosis is driven by a spinal rotation, the human body moves because of the muscles surrounding the joints. If left unaddressed, the curve pattern will tend to make certain muscles over work, and other muscles at a disadvantage. Therefore, scoliosis PT plays such an important role in helping scoliosis.

Despite an increasing understanding of how injuries occur, youth baseball continues to see a rise in injury rate. With current findings showing that 1 in 5 players from 9 to 15 years old will have an injury each year, parents and players are always looking for the best programs to enhance sport performance and reduce injuries. Luckily, most of these injuries won’t require surgery or major time away from the field. Understanding why most of these injuries occur is necessary. In most cases baseball injuries come down to overuse. A youth baseball injury rarely occurs because of a single instantaneous stress during sport, but repetitive and cumulative stresses on tissues lead to overload and failure.

Hearing the diagnosis of any neurological disease can be a scary and overwhelming time for a person and their support system. A neurological disease is defined as a “disorder that affect the brain as well as the nerves found throughout the human body and the spinal cord”. The most common include multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, and strokes. While there is no easy fix, neurologic disorders can often be well controlled with modern medical advancements. An often forgotten about intervention, however, is the role of movement and exercise which are often an afterthought in a management plan rather than part of early interventions. But in the wide world of exercise options the question is: Where do I begin?

Running often gets a bad rap. I hear people frequently say they gave up on running because it hurt or because a medical provider told them to. Now, I recognize some people just don’t like to run and if that’s you, this blog isn’t for you. Running is an activity that pushes our bodies to their maximum function, requiring more flexibility and strength than our typical daily routine. So, it is common at some point to experience some pain with running if your body has a deficit in flexibility or strength. Unfortunately, once people begin to experience pain with running, they are often encouraged to quit, or they just push through it. Unfortunately, pushing through often leads to more breakdown and they at some point may be forced to quit. If you don’t make that decision for yourself, you might be told by a medical practitioner that you should stop running. But if running is a normal, developmental activity that we are built for, why should we stop just because we have pain?

Research indicates that exercise has many benefits to cognitive and physical function, but your food intake and nutrition also play a vital role in your health. What are you using to fill your body? Sugary sodas, processed snacks, and inflammatory foods? Or rather, are you FUELING with appropriate nutrient-dense foods?

As the years pass by and the next stage of life endlessly continues to sneak up on us, it is inevitable that our life circumstances, and our daily habits change along the way. Regarding healthy habits, this often means having less time for exercise, and being less intentional about what we put in our bodies. Habits are great to help our brains save energy. However, when we develop habits that are detrimental to our health and wellness, they will perpetuate our pain, fatigue, poor self-image, and lack of confidence.

There are many factors used to try to predict how your spine may change or progress. If someone has the factors that show a high risk, the PT sessions will be dosed as appropriate to the need for more frequent PT sessions and more frequent follow up plan to monitor the curve.

Scoliosis is a sideways curve in your backbone (or spine). Often, it first shows up when you're a child or teenager. The angle of the curve may be small, large, or somewhere in between. But anything that measures more than 10 degrees on an X-ray is considered scoliosis.

"My daughter came home from school with a note that said she had a positive scoliosis screen. What exactly is Scoliosis and what do I now? According to Scottish Rite for Children "Scoliosis is not a disease. It is an abnormal curvature of the spine. In addition to the spine curving sideways, it also twists, making the ribs (which are attached to the spine) look uneven. This may cause a prominence or a “bump” on the back. Other signs include a shoulder or hip that looks higher than the other or the chest may appear uneven. Scoliosis is usually a painless condition. The diagnosis of scoliosis is confirmed by taking an X‐ray of the spine. If a curve measures more than 10 degrees, it is called scoliosis."

When we think of flexibility, we often think about stretching our muscles, but we do not think about the effect it can have on our joints. For some of us stretching is something that we know we should do regularly but never seem to have the time for it. When you break it down, flexibility at the core is the ability to move a joint through its full range of motion without restrictions.

Parkinson’s Disease is a progressive neurological disease effecting over 8 million people worldwide. The most common symptoms experienced are bradykinesia and hypokinesia, which means movements have become smaller or slowed compared to an individual without Parkinson’s. While this is incredibly frustrating for our patients, we at Focus Physiotherapy are now able to offer a program with over 20 years of NIH funded research behind it. It is an intervention strategy called LSVT BIG, which we are very excited to share with you as our company’s LSVT BIG certified clinician.

What if I told you there was a miracle drug that could reduce your risk for many conditions with almost no negative side effects? What if I told you that same drug could significantly reduce or even eliminate these chronic conditions if you have already been diagnosed? Would you be interested?

When I first started working here at Focus Physiotherapy I thought my main goal was to get people out of pain. While that is certainly an important part of what we do here, I quickly realized that getting people out of pain is only the beginning.

Last post, we discussed how to adjust your home office set-up to have the most successful posture while performing work or school requirements. In Part 2 of Let’s Talk Ergonomics: Posture yourself for success!, we address some of the most common muscles affected by poor posture and how to maximize your breaks for prevention and improvements in pain and muscle function.

Whether performing job or school requirements at home for a day, a week, or a month, it is important to know how to set up yourself and your workspace for optimal movement to prevent and reduce aches and pains.

As the weather turns warmer and the days turn longer, it’s a great time to take advantage of the extra day light by enjoying outdoor activities such as walks, runs, hikes, gardening, and recreational sports. While physical activity and fresh air are a great combination, it's important to stay safe while you're being active - especially if you've been hibernating for most of the winter. We have some great tips to prevent injury and help you reach your fitness goals.

We all agree that movement is what keeps our joints healthy, our muscles flexible, and our brains sharper, but what is the best type of movement? You might be surprised to find out that its dancing.

It is not uncommon to almost completely eliminate headache and migraine symptoms that have persisted for years or decades in just a few visits.

What is worth your drive? Would you sacrifice your ability to be active in exchange for a little bit of convenience?