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Christmas Survival Guide

By Lynne Midwinter, Chartered Physiotherapist

 

How do you manage to do all the shopping, cook the turkey and survive the in-laws without injuring yourself in the process?

 

The run up to Christmas is fraught with difficulties – presents to buy, decorations to hang, cards to write and a million and one things to organise.  Then over the holiday period most of us eat too much and then slouch in front of the television to watch the James Bond film for the 10th time!  All of this can cause strains and sprains in even the fittest of us and often at Physio & Therapies we treat a number of people between Christmas and New Year with injuries caused by Christmas activities, or more often, inactivity!

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Rear-ended recently? Don’t let it become a pain in the neck!

Driver Suffering From Whiplash After Traffic Collision

Whiplash has been in the media recently and is a term used to describe a neck injury caused by a sudden movement of the head forwards, backwards or sideways.  It is common in road traffic accidents but may also be caused by sports injuries, falls or assaults. Most cases of whiplash injury occur as the result of rear-end vehicle collisions at speeds of less than 14 miles per hour.

 

Common symptoms of whiplash include:

  • neck pain and stiffness
  • tenderness over the neck muscles
  • reduced and painful neck movements
  • headaches

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How Counselling can help Men to achieve better Mental Health

By Steve Axell, Counsellor and Life Coach

 

‘Stuff’ happens in life, like difficulties with work or finances, the breakdown of a relationship, overwhelming family responsibilities, the death of a family member or friend, illness, accidents and unexpected setbacks. These challenges can become a rich source of learning and growth and shape us as people, or they can take a serious toll on our mental health and cause us to become stuck, anxious, isolated and even ill. Many of us, men particularly, have been conditioned to tough it out and struggle alone, to ‘Man-Up’, rather than admit weakness or vulnerability and seek help, until it becomes overwhelming and reaches crisis point. Of the 6,233 suicides recorded in the UK in 2013, (which is 3 times the number of people killed in traffic accidents) 78% were male and 22% were female.

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Who is caring for the carers? BackCare Awareness week 3rd – 8th October

The UK is home to 7 million unpaid carers. These are people who provide care and support to an ailing or disabled family member, friend or neighbour on an ongoing basis. They represent an unpaid and often invisible workforce that saves the Government a staggering £119 billion every year – more than the Government’s entire annual NHS expenditure.

Carers are often exposed to higher than usual levels of physical and emotional stress which puts their own health at risk. Many carers help the person they care for with physical tasks, such as getting in and out of the bed, bath or chairs. In addition to this, the role of carer, especially when caring for a spouse or close family member, can create unique emotional stresses.

Over 70% the UK’s unpaid carers now suffer from back pain, and are at greater risk of developing chronic pain, which is highly disabling in a third of cases and life-long for the majority.

The national back pain charity, BackCare has chosen ‘Caring for Carers’ as this year’s BackCare Awareness Week theme (3rd – 8th of October 2016) so it seems an ideal opportunity to share some back care advice with you all.

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Do you blame your screen for headaches or migraines? I can help!

Migraines are now listed in the top 20 disabilities by the World Health Organisation  and a survey of over 120,000 households found that four out of ten females and two out of ten males respectively will experience Migraine at some stage in their lifetime – most likely before the age of 35 and that the greatest frequency of attacks are likely to occur between the ages of 20 and 24 years in females and 15 to 19 in males. The authors reported that these findings were in accordance with previous studies. (Stewart WF, Wood C, Reed ML, Roy J, Lipton RB. Cumulative lifetime migraine incidence in women and men. Cephalalgia 2008;28:1170-1178)

Clearly this is a significant problem for many people!

Historically Headache has been divided into two main types: Migraine (Migraine with and without aura and numerous variants) and Tension-type Headache.

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Are we setting up our teenagers for a future of back problems?

As the mother of a teenager, the prevalence of musculo-skeletal problems in teens is interesting to me and recently I’ve seen many more high school children presenting at my practice complaining of back pain, neck ache and headaches.  With the new term starting soon I decided to analyse the research and prevalence of problems and try to offer some solutions.

Looking back one of the first articles I wrote for Todmorden News in 2008 was about the weight of school bags and how this affected children’s backs. Research carried out by Helen Behrens, a nurse and lecturer, had shown that 30% of children carried schoolbags weighing over 10% of their bodyweight. She reported that this placed unnecessary stress on the growing adolescent spine that, later in life, could be the cause of back pain.  I believe that this is still a significant problem – neither of our local high schools have lockers for the students to use meaning that children carry heavy loads not only to and from school but throughout the school day including all their books for each day plus any PE kit, instruments for music lessons and ingredients for food technology.

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I’m too busy to exercise!

We all lead hectic and busy lifestyles; working long hours, family commitments, chores (or what I like to refer to as ‘adulting’), as well as  the need to maintain a social life. Sound familiar? You’re not alone… these are all common barriers to exercise that lead us to convince ourselves that we are “too busy” for exercise, something which I have also been guilty of. The reality is, however, that we are not too busy, we just don’t prioritise it as highly as other events in our diary. We all make time for things that we really want to do, right? So here are some tips to help overcome these barriers:

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How can I get Tennis elbow when I’ve never played tennis?

As I shouted at my TV yesterday willing Andy Murray on at Wimbledon, it reminded me about the conundrum of Tennis Elbow.

XXX of ZZZZ plays a forehand in his/her first round match against XXXX of ZZZZZ during day two of the 2015 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 20, 2015 in Melbourne, Australia.

 

Tennis Elbow is officially caused by inflammation of the tendons on the outside of your elbow and is also called lateral epicondylitis.  It is classed as an overuse injury and occurs when you do repeated movements and it gets worse if you keep doing the activity that causes the pain.  It usually happens on your dominant side.  So it is easy to see why it happens in tennis players- as they grip the racquet and then use their arm the tendon that extends the wrist and elbow (called the common extensor tendon) gets inflamed causing pain, swelling and can even make a crunching noise called crepitus.

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