Patients come in for many reasons, among the most common include pain, and movement restriction in their joints. This can result from many causes, trauma, movement compensation, repetitive stress, autoimmune and inflammation amongst others.
At Optimal Life we have a golden rule “listen to your Patient” and respect what they have to tell about their issues. They want the security of knowing you will assess them safely and accurately, to diagnose what their complaints are caused by and move them towards healing and an optimal pain free life.
The practitioners at Optimal Life use some cutting-edge technology including a digital centre of pressure balance board looking for balance disorders and sensory mismatch, a gait assessment force plate to look for foot, ankle, knee and hip issues as well as leg length inequalities.
We have just introduced motion guidance laser as part of our assessment and rehabilitation tool kit. This clever technology gives us the capacity to strap laser pointer devices to a patient’s joint to track and record their motion compared to the normal range of motion as well as to track improvement during and after treatment.
This novel approach allows the integration of visual feedback to enhance motor learning and improve movement patterns.
Due to pain, the patient may become weak in the muscles leading to reduced motion. They may find that the muscles on one side of a joint feel tight and restricted, unable to be moved. This restriction can become chronic and end up increasing pain. Loops of proprioceptive dysfunction can occur, the internal joint cue is not telling the brain where it is properly, sometimes too much data causing an undershoot, or too little leading to an overshoot.
Research studies have identified this lack of positional awareness of a joint in people with pain and joint injuries. The motion guidance lasers give an external visual cue to provide data from a different sensory system to rehab the mismatched vestibular or proprioceptive systems and enhance integration of the disrupted joint.
The beauty of this system is it can be used to assess, rehab, and track progress, it can be applied to almost any joint and rehab is fun and only limited by your imagination.
This new technology combined with our “Brain Body Health” focus gives so many options to help patients, reduce pain and improve joint range of motion to help them improve their health outcomes and live life more optimally.
Image credit: http://www.envisionsolutionsnow.com/
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