CHARTING YOUR PATH TO LASTING HEALTH​​​

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PAIN IS YOUR BODY TELLING YOU TO CHANGE
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Physical therapy focuses on restoring pain-free function and preventing physical degeneration by normalizing the structure and functioning of  the musculoskeletal and neuromuscular aspects of your body. An apt analogy might be this:

If your car is displaying "symptoms" (gas leaking, clunking noises etc), there is a problem preventing the car from working properly. You realize that you need to take the car to a repair shop and have it fixed soon, in order to prevent the problem from getting worse. If you took it for a road trip instead, you wouldn't be surprised if your car broke down on the road. 

Similarly, if you are symptomatic, it means that there is a glitch in the system, a weak link, and just like in the case of your car, this problem needs to be corrected in order for you to be able to safely, without the risk of injury, engage in movement and activity, whether that be your daily activities around your home, low-effort exercises like yoga, or more vigorous exercise undertaken to strengthen your body.

"Just exercise more, you just need to get stronger" is bad advice for symptomatic hypermobile people and more often than not results in injury and disappointment. Correcting the body's functioning first allows for safe movement.

In order to make the therapy targeted and effective, treatment is preceded by a very thorough examination. Masking symptoms with drugs or localized treatment modalities instead of correcting what is wrong may lead to gradual degeneration of the body's structures and functioning, and subsequently more pain. The intelligent choice is using the information that the location and nature of the pain provides to restore the body to its "factory settings".

Correcting what's wrong, be it skeletal mal-alignment, faulty movement patterns, hypermobility and joint laxity, emotional or habitual holding patterns, poor strength and stability around the spine and trunk in general (often referred to as "core strength"), pelvis or shoulder girdle, poor postural, movement and work habits or age-, nutrition-, or stress-related biochemical changes in the body, frees you from the need to experience symptoms such as pain, fragility or decreased function.

This is a functional approach; understanding how a healthy body functions helps us understand why symptoms arise, and helps us correct the underlying malfunction.


                   Each patient is a unique individual. There
                          are no one size fits all-solutions.


Therapy sessions are highly individualized and include a variety of therapeutic exercise techniques, guidance on how to overcome nutritional and other "biochemical glitches".

Your continued healing journey is supported through education in self-care techniques, proper body mechanics and movement patterns and through the enhancement of strength, flexibility, nutrition and body awareness and a health-promoting lifestyle in body and mind.

Your ongoing active participation in this process is important. Only you are with your body 24-7!


WHAT TO EXPECT: A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH FOR LASTING RESULTS

Everything starts with a detailed evaluation. If we don't know what is wrong, we can't target the treatment effectively. Treatment aimed at symptoms instead of root causes do not lead to lasting improvement. Treatment also needs to be individualized in order to be maximally effective. Just doing "back exercises" or yoga "because it's good for the back" is not specific enough and may not help you reach full function, and may actually be counterproductive and be part of what locks in the problem.


​Simply jumping into a general exercise program can lead to injuries and pain. Most individuals  benefit        from normalizing function first.


Once we have determined what factors contribute to what you are feeling, we set about correcting  these through various means. We may include specific stabilizing exercises to bring back normal functioning of the spine, correction of how you use your body (stand, walk, run, sit or work out) and ergonomics (correction of your position in bed, in the car, by your desk, in your sofa etc). Your diet, supplementation and lifestyle are significant players in health and can be improved. 

Hypermobile individuals often have a long history of various symptoms, and may have developed complicating factors such as kinesiophobia (fear of movement), central sensitization of pain, varying degrees of dissociation form the body and, understandably,  a deep sense of physical fragility. These  factors are just as important to progress as muscular activation. You advance at your own pace, along the path you as an individual need. 

Each individual's situation is unique, and requires a unique
set of actions to bring about positive change.

LIVING HAPPILY WITH HYPERMOBILITY

Individuals on the hypermobility spectrum have specific needs that need to be addressed in order to prevent gradual damage of poorly protected joints, and to treat already occurring pain, instability and weakness. Hypermobile joints 
and looser connective tissue present a unique challenge to the patient and the treating physical therapist, and treatment needs to be planned and paced accordingly. 

Physical therapy is incredibly important for this population. The increased laxity of joints and ligaments, and the subsequent additional challenges such as poor balance or proprioception, muscle weakness, slower healing and recovery etc, need to be  compensated for through added muscle strength, proprioception and stability and supported by healthy lifestyle practices.

Learn more here and here.


DO ACTIVE PEOPLE BENEFIT FROM PHYSICAL THERAPY?​

Once dysfunction has set in the human body does not have ways of correcting itself. Strong muscles get stronger, weak ones get weaker, unnatural movement patterns become entrenched and tightness and postural dysfunction increases. Exercising your way out of this is not really possible, and at this point exercise actually tends to deepen the dysfunction. A rehabilitative approach with therapeutic changes is needed to get the body back to its "factory settings". 


THE ROLE OF THE PHYSICAL THERAPIST IN DIET AND NUTRITION

According to the American Physical Therapy Association  (APTA)  HOD P06-15-22-17 [Position]:
Diet and nutrition are key components of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of many conditions managed by physical therapists. It is the role of the physical therapist to screen for and provide information on diet and nutritional issues to patients, clients, and the community within the scope of physical therapist practice.

For those wishing to benefit from a more in-depth health consultation, health- and wellness coaching is offered as a separate service as well.



WHY USE A PRIVATE PRACTICE  DOCTOR OF PHYSICAL THERAPY?

Lilian Holm Wellness offers a convenient and accessible alternative to big physical therapy clinics where a large number of patients are treated in a communal space. In these types of settings the therapist's time and attention is shared by several patients at the same time, and the bulk of the care is delivered by assistants and aides, not by doctors of  physical therapy. Many patients have found this approach unsatisfying and less effective.
 
Numerous studies and experts agree: when physical therapy clinics follow the ubiquitous practice of delegating a large part of the care to assistants the quality of care decreases.

Tim Flynn, PT, PhD: “High utilization of physical therapy assistants has been shown to lead to inferior outcomes."

















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