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"It's just my posture" … the slippery slope towards work related injury

May 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Every day of the week, we are visited by patients complaining of lower back pain, neck pain, head-aches, shoulder, elbow or wrist strains.

Many of them are busy professionals from companies and organisations in the Uxbridge and Hillingdon area. As we gather background information relative to the causes of injury, many of these patients will rather insightfully say

“it must be posture-related”.

In a sense, they are right: as office workers sit at their desk all day, increasingly hunched over their computer screen, so their chest and neck muscles tighten, compressing the vertebrae in their neck, straining their mid and lower back muscles, causing their shoulders, elbows and wrists to function at unnatural angles, and to sustain repetitive strain injuries; and as they cross their legs in these interminable meetings, so their pelvis may become twisted, resulting in lower back pain and lower limb complaints. The current prevailing mood of heightened stress is but an extra potential trigger of the injury process…

However, there is a degree of fatalism in incriminating posture, in other words it is often seen as an inevitable fact of life.

As osteopaths, we hope you would expect us to disagree strongly: with a little awareness focussed on understanding the mechanism of injury, altering the layout of work stations, improving working posture and implementing some basic lifestyle and postural exercise routines, the frequency of work-related injuries can be radically altered.

Over the coming weeks and months, Bridge to Health’s osteopaths will be stepping up their campaign to increase public awareness of how to prevent these types of injuries.

Our June health offer to local employees living or working in and around Uxbridge will centre on a postural assessment and osteopathic treatment, coupled with some practical exercises to enhance posture.

We will also be speaking to our corporate clients to encourage them in a pragmatic approach to work-station ergonomic assessments, coupled with employee training in workplace injury prevention practices.

If you believe you’re suffering from the effects of poor posture, feel free to contact your local osteopath on 01895 20 00 50 (the address for our Osteopathic Clinic in Uxbridge is here). If you think that a conversation with your company’s health and safety representative would be helpful, they are welcome to visit our website www.bridgetohealth.co.uk and then to contact us on the same number.

Filed Under: Employee health, Lifestyle, Osteopathy, Posture, Special Offers, Stress Relief / Management Tagged With: , ,

A recommended pillow for sleeping / do you need an orthopaedic pillow?

May 21, 2009 By 1 Comment

You do not necessarily need an orthopaedic pillow from a specialist supplier (with a specialist price attached); broadly speaking, you just need something that maintains your body in good head, neck and back alignment. Because of this, the sleeping position you favour is important to your requirement:

if you sleep on your side, you will need a higher pillow than if you sleep on your back, and if you sleep on your front, you probably don’t need one at all.

If you sleep on your side, try to use something that supports your neck as well as your head (this is a feature of orthopaedic pillows, but you can achieve the same result with a bit of effort by tucking the pillow under your neck). If you are struggling to find a comfortable sleeping position for your neck, it may be worth seeing an osteopath in order to assess your vertebral alignment and posture.

Finally, the softness of the pillow is a matter of personal preference so long as the support is adequate.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Osteopathy Tagged With: , , ,

I want to speak to the Osteopath!

May 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Since setting up our osteopathic clinic in Uxbridge 18 months ago, we have received numerous offers of physical or virtual receptionists to manage our patient calls and bookings so leaving us free to treat patients.

We have not taken these offers up and do not intend to do so. When people are in pain and ring Bridge to Health, the first thing they want to know is whether we can help them.

At that point, nothing can replace speaking to the osteopath directly, who can then either confirm that osteopathic treatment is appropriate, or advise the patient otherwise, such as to contact their GP or even go straight to their nearest A&E.

When you contact Bridge to Health – our telephone number is 01895 20 00 50 – you will speak directly to an osteopath. If we are treating a patient, you may need to leave a message and provide us with your contact details, and we will return your call shortly afterwards, usually within the coming 2 hours.

Filed Under: BridgetoHealth, Stress Relief / Management

What can we learn from comparing oriental and western healthcare approaches?

May 7, 2009 By 2 Comments

In April, Peter joined Bridge to Health in Uxbridge, and in his first post on our blog he describes his approach to osteopathic healthcare. Welcome, Peter.

Having trained alongside Mathieu and Marcus, I do not expect to present a radical departure of osteopathic style; however, I do have my own background influences.

I came to osteopathy in the interests of developing and consolidating my awareness of anatomy, physiology and biomechanics; prior to that, I worked with a number of Oriental disciplines, most notably Shiatsu, which is a Japanese form of bodywork performed on a futon mat that manipulates the circulation of Ki (or chi) within the body to enhance health and wellbeing.

The great therapeutic strength of energetic forms of bodywork is in the harnessing of what you might call “life-force”; the great therapeutic strength of western biomechanical bodywork is in the utilisation of anatomical and physiological knowledge and understanding. The synthesis of the two opens up intriguing possibilities.

However, that is all very well, and reminds me of a quote I came across the other day:

in theory, theory and practice are identical, but in practice, they aren’t.

So what does all this have to do with your frozen shoulder, low back pain, tennis elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, RSI, runner’s knee, stiff neck, bad posture or whatever it is you have that concerns you?

Well, from a practical perspective, treatment is an ongoing multifaceted concept, which may involve anything from manipulation, mobilisation, massage, circulatory stimulation, lymphatic drainage, cranial osteopathy etc. to stretches, exercise activities, dietary adjustments, work-desk reorganisation etc.

But treatment also involves you as a life-force – i.e. a force of life, with the ability to affect change; you yourself can be a far more effective agent of change than any therapeutic intervention, so somewhere along the line, and in whatever way I feel suits the individual concerned, I try to bring that life-force to bear on whatever may be of concern, in the belief that the best service I can offer is to assist the individual in removing some of the barriers to radiant health that they may have inadvertently acquired, and remind them of their own amazing ability to affect change and flourish.

Filed Under: BridgetoHealth, Lifestyle, Osteopathy Tagged With: , ,