Our role as essential healthcare service providers has not changed after the recent announcement by the government regarding the roadmap to re-opening the country.

As chartered physiotherapists working in the private sector, we are deemed primary medical as well as essential therapies according to the government list published on the 28th of March 2020, view here.

If you become infected with COVID-19, you have a better chance of recovery, without developing severe complications, by improving your metabolic health [1,2]. We already know that those with underlying conditions such as type 2 diabetes are more likely to experience difficulties [3,4,5].

Chronic inactivity is a significant risk in the modern world, as a lot of people have jobs that require them to sit at a desk all day. This only adds to the other inactive hours while sleeping or watching TV.

Reducing chronic inactivity is now thought to be even more critical than doing regular exercise sessions. A 240,000-person study by the National Institutes of Health in the US found that adults who spend the most time seated have a 50 per cent higher mortality rate; even exercising for seven hours a week wasn't enough to improve this!

I am writing this after reading about medical acupuncture in the treatment of COVID-19 in a very interesting blog by Dr Mike Cummings, Medical Director at the British Medical Acupuncture Society.

Mike reminded me that the influence of acupuncture is in many cases, homeostatic. In other words, acupuncture can help normalise our body's internal physiological milieu which, depending on how far from 'normal' the body was operating, can have quite profound effects. These homeostatic effects can influence pain, sleep, mood, cognitive function and behaviours, usually very positively.

The way that bones, muscles and tendons all connect is pretty impressive in its elegance.

Did you know? Hands contain 29 bones, 17 muscles, 123 ligaments, and various arteries and nerves. There are then another 18 muscles in the forearm that help operate the hand and fingers and thumb.

What results is a part of our anatomy, which is very flexible, durable and highly functional. Our opposable thumbs are a clever piece of design, and as advanced primates, we put them to good use.

Measuring your grip strength is an excellent test of not just strength but overall health and wellbeing. 

A simple grip strength test is an indicator of athletic performance, the impact of ageing, full-body strength, muscle mass, body fat and even nutritional status.

In newborns, the natural grip reflex soon subsides, but grip strength continues to increase for the next two to three decades. After which grip strength starts to decrease, how rapidly this occurs is a good indicator of overall health and fitness.

Okay, I am probably going to get into some trouble here, but here I go anyway, with the best of intentions!

I am writing this article not to lecture, judge or point fingers but out of concern, to try and help raise awareness about the dangers of sugar for our children.

Why the jellies, buns, cookies, cakes and chocolates, why all the treats? Why does a 'treat' have to mean sugar?

'Oh, but they are kids' I hear you say, it would be cruel to deny them treats.' We all had a few treats when we were young'.

Yes, we did, myself included, and I ended up struggling with childhood obesity from which I thankfully, eventually managed to recover. However, many parents have not been as fortunate. They are living with metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity and other diseases, mostly and in some cases entirely related to sugar.

Is this what we want for our children?

Tips for reducing & preventing Anterior Knee Pain

Anterior knee pain is a very common condition and we treat many cases here at the clinic. 

The pain and dysfunction are usually related to the patellofemoral joint and needs to be treated carefully and specifically.

Here are some tips to help you get started:

So you are doing loads of CrossFit, Spinning, Les Mills or other longer duration, high-intensity exercise classes each week. Perhaps you are a long-distance runner or triathlete. You push hard to achieve your goals, to stay in shape. You are fit, but are you healthy?

Fitness vs health is a topic which is being debated by many, not only health experts but medical as well. There have been numerous, prominent articles and discussions about the real meaning of being healthy, about how so many well-intentioned people are getting it very wrong, and making themselves very sick in the process. Some are even dying. Check out Dr James O'Keefes' Ted Talks and Google articles like 'One Foot in the Grave' and 'Running on Empty'.

If you have not read part 1, which I posted last week, I'd recommend having a quick read.

In Part 2 of this article, I will discuss the assessment of a patient with a suspected whiplash-associated disorder (WAD), as well as an evidence and experience-based physiotherapy treatment approach.