What is Physiotherapy?

Physiotherapy uses a variety of techniques to help your muscles and joints work to their full potential. It can help repair damage by speeding up the healing process and reducing pain and stiffness. Physiotherapists also have an important role in rehabilitation. However, physiotherapists don’t just offer treatment; their advice can help you prevent problems from returning or even from happening in the first place.

What is Physiotherapy?

Virtually any condition that affects your muscles, joints, or nerves can be helped by physiotherapy. Common problems include:

  • Painful conditions such as arthritis
  • Back and neck pain, including whiplash
  • Problems affecting children including cerebral palsy
  • Pregnancy-related symptoms such as back pain and stress incontinence
  • Upper limb work-related problems, also know as repetitive strain injury (RSI)
  • Asthma and other breathing difficulties
  • Sports injuries
  • Stroke and other neurological problems

What does the Treatment Involve?

Before any action is taken our physiotherapist, Mr. Sam Pierce, will assess your condition, diagnose the problem, and help you understand what’s wrong. Sam will work with you to develop a treatment plan that takes into account your lifestyle, leisure activities, and general health. This will include advice on how you can help yourself; for example, you may be shown exercises that you can do between treatment sessions.

Sam uses a variety of treatments. For example:

  • Exercise programs, including exercise in water and group exercise programs, designed to improve mobility and strengthen muscles
  • Massage
  • Joint mobilisation to reduce pain and stiffness
  • Muscle re-education
  • Hot and cold packs and electrotherapy to relieve pain, reduce swelling, speed up the healing process, improve movement, and increase functional abilities
  • Airway clearance techniques and breathing exercises, to assist people with a variety of breathing difficulties
  • Assistance with the use of aids, eg splints, crutches, canes, and wheelchairs

Throughout the treatment or re-training program, Sam evaluates your progress at regular intervals, modifying treatment and goals when necessary. Wherever possible Sam will also work with you to help you learn to manage your condition independently for the longer term.

At Bassendean Wellness Clinic, we also offer services within a number of specialised fields including:

  • Core Stability
  • Women’s Health
  • Men’s Health
  • Golf Physio
  • TMJ and Facial Pain
  • Sports and Rehabilitation

Core Stability

Core stability retraining is important for the treatment of many areas including:

  • Low back pain
  • Groin strain and Osteitis Pubis
  • Hamstring
  • Pelvis
  • Women’s health – pelvic floor and peri-natal period
  • Hip Pain
  • Knee Complaints
  • Shoulder Stability (throwing, golf swing, batting mechanics)
  • Injury prevention
  • Performance enhancement
  • Falls prevention
  • Neuro Rehab and Paediatric

Core Stability refers to the ability of the body to activate the trunk muscles or better known “core muscles”. It involves specific activation and control of deep stabilising muscles. Good core stability is using the right muscles at the right time at the right intensity to control the trunk appropriately for the task at hand. These muscles are important and crucial in nearly all your daily activities so it is without a doubt a necessity knowing how to control, activate and strengthen them.

The deep stabilisers are:

  • Attach directly into the lumbar spine at each level
  • Turn on before you move to support the spine and pelvis
  • Turn on and stay on as you move
  • Work at a low intensity and stay on for long periods of time

From the first episode of back pain the deep stabilisers change how they function. The spine and pelvis are no longer protected by the deep stabilisers as well as they should be. The deep stabilisers now:

  • Have delayed activation, turning on AFTER you start to move
  • Turn on and off as you move – hence not providing the support they usually do
  • Work in short bursts rather than staying on as you move

Pain around the lower back and pelvis or groin often results from these changes. Treating the painful areas only gives short term relief. To treat the pain effectively you need to stop the reason why the pain occurs by improving the deep stabiliser muscles in conjunction to the spinal dysfunctions.

The deep stabilising muscles insert directly or via their fascial attachments directly onto the lumbar spine. The direct connections of the deep stabilising muscles allow them to have a great deal of control over the lumbar spine and pelvis. This fine tuned control of the deep stabilisers is what we rely on when stressing our spine.

Assessing and treating issues with core stability involves assessing both the local and global systems. It is important to find what is underactive, what is overactive and make the muscles function more normally. Generally there is a deficit in the local system that needs to be improved and the subsequent compensatory strategies of the global muscles reduced. It is this reduction in the compensatory strategies that will generally make you feel better.

Women’s Health

Women’s Health physiotherapy relates to treatment specific to conditions affecting women. This includes conditions only affecting women, for example pregnancy, or specific to female anatomy.

Women’s Health conditions we treat include:

  • Incontinence
    • Urinary & Faecal
    • Stress
    • Urge
  • Nocturia
  • Mastitis, blocked milk ducts
  • Pregnancy related pelvic pain (sacroiliac and pubic symphysis)
  • Pregnancy related back pain
  • Gestational carpal tunnel syndrome
  • Post surgical scarring and pain
    • Caesarean
    • Episiotomy
  • Post operative gynaecological rehabilitation
  • Post natal core strengthening programs
  • Post natal pelvic pain, coccyx pain
  • Post natal back pain
  • Post natal diastasis recti/abdominal muscle separation
  • Post natal thoracic and neck pain
  • Post natal wrist and thumb pain
  • Pre-gynaecological surgery education and strengthening programs

Pilates Classes

  • Pre-natal
  • Post-natal (mother and baby together)
  • General

Other Pre and Post Natal Services Offered

  • Education for use of TENS for labour, including hire of TENS units
  • Post Natal Musculoskeletal check
  • Includes pelvic floor, abdominal, gluteal muscle check and education regarding breast feeding postures & baby handling ergonomics
  • Baby Massage classes

For the Baby

  • Torticollis treatment programs
  • Plagiocephaly (misshapen head) management
  • Postural talipes exercise and education programs

Men’s Health

Men’s Health physiotherapy relates to treatment specific to conditions affecting men.

  • Pre and Post prostatectomy rehabilitation
  • Urgency, urge incontinence, ‘irritable bladder’
  • Urinary frequency
  • Chronic constipation and defecation dynamics

Golf Physio

Golf Physiotherapy involves the treatment of conditions associated with golf. However, this is one of the areas where our multidisciplinary approach in athletes care provides the best result. Attending to the biomechanics of the golf swing and how it affects your body, teaching you and helping you make the most of your swing and focusing on your body to prevent injuries.

It is a great idea to bring footage of your golf swing, preferably videoed by your Golf Pro to allow us to see how you move. Footage is best obtained from behind and from the side to allow a good view of your swing.

Whether you are a compete hacker (much like most of us!!) or more of an elite player, we can help you reach your peak.

TMJ and Facial Pain

Jaws joint pain or the better known TMJ pain (Temporomandibular joint) and facial pain can be painful and debilitating. The pain is often associated with chronic teeth grinding or clenching. These habits can cause the muscles around the joint to become overworked and painful. Pain can be felt over the TMJ, in the face or as headaches. Chronic conditions can even lead to a change in the face shape over the years as they build larger facial muscles as their body adapts to the loads they apply to their jaw.

Mr. Sam Pierce and also our chiropractors can help you learn self treatment strategies such as how to stop your clenching habits. Patients often need to know how to control the muscles of their tongue and jaw more appropriately. They are usually provided with hands-on treatments in addition to specific at-home exercises and stretches to do.

Sports and Rehabilitation

Sports Physiotherapy is the treatment of conditions associated with sporting injuries and the needed performance. This can be at any level, from the elite international athlete to the weekend warrior to those who don’t get to exercise nearly as much as they’d like!

Sam understands the demands of many sports and forms of exercise. He is actively involved with Swan Districts Football Club, Swan Athletics Football Club and Bassendean Baseball Club. He has looked after many Surfers in the past and was one of the Consultant practitioners with the Australian National Water polo Team prior to Beijing 2008 Olympics. He also sees athletes (of any level) in a range of other sports with lumbopelvic dysfunction. He recently has developed core stability programs for the Swan Districts Football Club players. These players often have core stability issues which manifest as hamstring, groin or low back and pelvic pain.