PHYSICAL THERAPY
Happy New Year, and welcome to 2020! For most of us, we have already started filling the pages of the calendar with appointments. Sometimes it may seem like an ongoing journey between our primary care doctor, physical therapy, eye doctor, and the dreaded dentist appointment. We make a point to schedule an appointment for a physical, eye exam, and two dental exams every year. But, why don’t we take the time to get a physical therapy check-up? For most of us, we don’t wait until we have a toothache to go see the dentist. Why wait until we have an injury to go see our Physical Therapist or Physical Therapist Assistant? With Selective Functional Movement Assessments (SFMA), a PT or PTA is able to identify and target movement patterns that may lead to future injury.
In brief, the body consists of alternating stable and mobile joints. For example, the ankle is mobile, the knee is stable, the hip is mobile, etc. When a mobile joint suddenly becomes less mobile, it increases the stress on a stable joint, and vice versa. When stress is increased, we put ourselves at a great risk of injury. By using SFMA, a clinician is able to assess movement patterns and identify a movement dysfunction that may be leading to pain or future injury. Within a few minutes, a clinic can run a first-tier screen to locate a region of dysfunction. From there, more specific movement screens can be performed in order to identify the actual location and cause of the dysfunction. Dysfunctions are divided into two categories consisting of “Stability-Motor Control Dysfunction” (our muscles are not firing correctly, or are too weak), and “Joint Mobility Dysfunction, Tissue Extensibility Dysfunction”, which means our joints are not mobile enough, or our muscles are too tight. Once a clinician has identified the region and the cause of the pain, exercises and/or treatment can be given to reduce pain and prevent future injury.
Clinicians throughout the medical field include prevention as a main foundation within the practice. An SFMA screening is a tool that can be used to identify and prevent possible future injury. As a society, we do not wait until we have a toothache to visit our dentist. So why should we wait until we are in pain to take care of our bodies?
