Jasper Physiotherapy and Health Centre is offering a new proactive program to help Jasperites prevent injuries.
It’s called the Proactive Profile.
“I’m likening this to going to see your dentist for a cleaning or going to your doctor every year for a check up,” explained Sarah MacDonald, a physiotherapist at the clinic. “You do those things because sometimes the big scary diseases creep up on you and the same goes for injuries. Sometimes the injuries that come out of nowhere could have been prevented when you were feeling fine.”
The profile is a 90-minute assessment that looks at the body’s compensation patterns—the movements we learn overtime that are inefficient and have the potential to cumulate, resulting in unnecessary injury.
“We’re looking to prevent the injuries that happen because of all the little cracks in the system. If you think of an injury as a big crack in the foundation, these are all the little leaks that seep in over the years.
“So the way that you bend from your lower back instead of your hips—that leads to chronic back pain. The way you hold yourself at a desk or the way you walk leads to neck pain or knee injuries.
We’re looking to uncover all of these little culprits that overtime cumulate.
“It’s just like if you have a misalignment on one of the wheels of your car, that wheel is going to wear down faster than everything else.”
MacDonald recently completed a course to facilitate the Proactive Profile and now, in hopes of gaining some additional real-life experience, she is offering free assessments to the students in her six-week circuit training class, which began March 8.
“I’m already incorporating this clinically, but now I want to see how I can help people prevent injuries or improve their functioning outside of, and beyond, what they may manage. A lot of people here in town are extremely active and they kind of muddle through a plethora of previous injuries and I would love to be able to help eliminate some of those limits, some of those barriers, and improve people’s activity levels and functioning.”
The 90-minute assessment addresses everything from previous injuries to current movement patterns and focusses on a person’s goals, whether they hope to run a marathon or hike Whistlers Mountain without pain.
“After we chat for a bit then I watch somebody do 12 basic movements, things that are functionally necessary for day-to-day life and I’ll observe if they’re functional or dysfunctional and I’ll ask if they’re painful or not.”
MacDonald said watching those 12 movements and how a person performs them helps her form a road map leading to the areas where she needs to take a closer look.
“From there we go into a more hands-on assessment where I’m testing mobility of joints, breaking down these different movement patterns to figure out if the dysfunction’s coming from an area that won’t move or an area that your brain can’t control to move properly.”
Once the assessment is complete, MacDonald creates a written report that includes a proposed treatment plan that will help the patient prevent future injury.
“From there people can decide if they want to pursue treatment or not,” she said.
Nicole Veerman
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