Conditions
At Healthy Mates Health and Conditioning Complex we we treat a wide range of conditions from Back pain to sport injuries.
Conditions
At Healthy Mates Health and Conditioning Complex we we treat a wide range of conditions from Back pain to sport injuries.
Back Pain
Back pain is an extremely common condition, with up to 80% of the population experiencing back pain at some time during their lives. The onset can be immediate or slow over time. It can then heavily impact our day-to-day function and quality of life, interfering with sport, exercise, work and daily activities. The pain’s exact cause, type and location are always unique to each individual, which means there is no single ‘fix’ for all Back Pain. A muscular injury or strain, a degenerative condition such as arthritis, or a problem with the spine often causes back pain.
Approach to treatment;
Our clinicians will undertake a thorough assessment to ensure any underlying issues are addressed. This enables a solution to be found that works for you, provides long-term relief and stops the issue from recurring. Our physiotherapists and exercise physiologists can help you with your back pain through education, hands-on techniques (such as massage, dry needling, and mobilisations), and personalised targeted exercise programs. Hydrotherapy pools can also be a great addition to your treatment.
Back pain should not limit you from participating in what you enjoy. Our clinicians will strive to have you return to your previous activity, enhancing your quality of life and reducing any pain you may have. We aim to provide education on ways to prevent reoccurrence and, if there are, manage symptoms to prevent return visits.
Neck pain and headaches
Neck pain is widespread within society, with about one in 10 people experiencing it at any given time.
This comes as no surprise when we consider the activities of modern life, such as sitting in front of a computer or prolonged periods of watching television. Sustained postures may increase the risk of neck pain, while for other people, neck pain may occur for no apparent reason.
Headache disorders are common in today’s society amongst communities worldwide; it is certainly a common condition we see in clinics most days. Headaches can occur due to a variety of reasons, including stress, poor posture, physical trauma, medications and environmental factors. Common causes of migraine and tension headaches are nerve irritation in the upper neck caused by poorly functioning spinal joints. The nerves of the upper neck supply areas of the scalp and face; irritating these nerves can often lead to headaches.
Our physiotherapists possess in-depth knowledge of the neck’s anatomy and biomechanics. This allows physios to assess and diagnose the underlying causes of neck pain. Through a thorough examination, they aim to identify muscle imbalances, joint dysfunctions, postural issues, or other contributing factors to the pain. With this understanding, physiotherapists develop personalised treatment plans that are tailored to you, your pain, and your needs.
Once a thorough assessment has been completed, our clinicians will tailor the treatment to your needs to reduce pain, address underlying contributing factors, and give you some relief. Common treatment techniques for the neck involve deep tissue massage, joint mobilisations, trigger point release, dry needling, exercise, education and hydrotherapy.
Foot and ankle pain
Like the hand and wrist, the foot is a complicated area of the body that contains many bones, ligaments, muscles and nerves.
Because of its complexity, foot and ankle pain can often be challenging to diagnose, so a thorough assessment by an experienced physiotherapist is essential. Within the clinic, we often see many injuries, such as;
- Ligament injuries associated with rolling of the ankle
- Fractures
- Heel pain,
- Achilles tendinopathy
- Plantar fascitis
- mid-foot and toe pain
- Foot and ankle arthritis
The approach to treatment at Healthy Mates is understanding the reason for your foot and ankle pain, whether it’s a workplace injury, sporting injury or chronic ankle instability. We strive to understand the causes and aim to rehabilitate the injury to prevent and minimise the chance of re-injury. The best treatment method will depend on the specific diagnosis. In most cases, sprains and strains can be managed initially with taping or bracing, soft tissue massage and dry needling. As treatment advances, your physiotherapist will guide you through evidence-based strength, flexibility and balance exercises to help you get your ankle ready to return to your activity. Our therapists often incorporate hydrotherapy into foot and ankle rehabilitation, allowing for early weight bearing and a usually quicker recovery.
If your pain is a chronic condition, our clinicians will help reduce your pain, restore a normal range of motion and prescribe exercises to achieve this. Regardless of foot and ankle pain, our clinicians will help you return to your activity, reduce your pain, and gain a better quality of life.
Shoulder and arm pain
The shoulder naturally has a wide range of movement, making it less stable and more susceptible to injuries.
Shoulder and arm pain can be caused by various structures in your joints: muscles, ligaments, tendons, stiffness in your thoracic spine, or dysfunction of your cervical spine. Shoulder injuries can include, but are not limited to, rotator cuff syndrome, frozen shoulder, shoulder impingement, shoulder dislocations, biceps tendinopathy or bursitis and tennis elbow.
Our Physiotherapist will assess you thoroughly to determine which factors contribute to your pain. After establishing the cause of your pain, our physiotherapists will develop a treatment plan consisting of muscular release, mobilisation of the stiff joint, exercise rehabilitation, dry needling and a hydrotherapy program if necessary.
With shoulder and arm rehabilitation, exercise prescription plays an important role. Your Physiotherapist will prescribe exercises to address any muscle weakness or imbalance you might have and work on control of the shoulder girdle. These are often undertaken at home, in our fully equipped gym or hydrotherapy pool, with our therapists giving you the treatment tailored to you.
Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a condition that can affect the whole joint, including bone, cartilage, ligaments and muscles. OA can affect any joint but occurs most often in the knees, hips, finger joints and big toe. It can develop at any age but tends to be more common in those who have had previous damage to the joint or joint injuries and or who are over the age of 40.
How can Healthy Mates help OA?
Exercise is essential for people with osteoarthritis as it helps to decrease pain, keep joints mobile, increase muscle strength, strengthen bones and ligaments, prevent joint deformities, and increase fitness in general. Gentle exercises, such as walking and hydrotherapy, are best. Whilst weight-bearing exercise is generally uncomfortable at the time, it helps to stimulate the synovial fluid in joints that provides nutrition to cartilage, thereby improving the condition of the remaining cartilage and preventing further damage.
Hydrotherapyis one of the best treatments for anyone suffering from OA. The pools at Healthy Mates are an excellent way for individuals with OA to exercise, strengthen the muscles surrounding their joints, decrease pain levels, and increase mobility. The buoyancy of the water allows for low weight bearing within the pool, allowing you to perform more exercises pain-free.
Minimising stresses on joints. This can be achieved by being aware of activities and body positions that stress individual joints and aggravate the symptoms. It may mean modifying activities like house chores and leisure pastimes. There are many different aids and equipment available that can help maintain function, and these can be arranged through your physiotherapist.
Keeping weight down
also helps to decrease the mechanical stress on joints. While a specific diet that will cure OA has yet to be discovered, correct nutrition will significantly assist in weight loss.
No matter how severe the OA you are suffering from, Healthy Mates has the facilities to help you manage it correctly. From our fully equipped gym to our therapeutic hydrotherapy pools, our therapists can tailor the treatment to your needs, assuring your OA does not stop you from doing the things you like.
Sporting Injuries
At Healthy Mates, we are passionate about all things sporting injuries. Our staff have extensive experience working with local sporting teams such as the Bendigo Braves, Bendigo Spirit, Bendigo Pioneers, Bendigo Strikers and other local sporting groups. From injuries such as sprains, strains, dislocations, tendinopathies or any pain you are experiencing with sport, our therapists have the skills, experience and knowledge to get you back on the park as soon as possible.
Within the clinic, our assessment skills, complemented by AxIT technology, allow us to measure real-time data to tailor our treatment to your needs. These systems will enable us to measure your strength, power and any asymmetries you may have, allowing us to get to the root cause of your injury and rehabilitate you correctly to ensure you miss less time playing your sport.
When treating your injury, our data lets us format the correct plan for you, whether deep tissue massage, dry needling, taping or joint mobilisations to minimise pain. This could also be using our fully equipped strength and conditioning gym, contrast pools, sauna, or hydrotherapy pools. The treatment approaches at Healthy Mates are different from those of most physiotherapy clinics, and you can be sure that this will have you returning quicker, no matter what your injury is.
Workplace Injuries
Physiotherapy is vital in rehabilitating work-related injuries by restoring function, reducing pain, and facilitating a return to work. Whether it’s an acute injury or a chronic condition resulting from occupational activities, a detailed assessment will be undertaken to establish the cause of the injury, helping to formulate a plan to restore normal function. Physiotherapists are trained to assess and treat a wide range of work-related injuries, whether this be traumatic accidents, strains, sprains or other work-related injuries.
Our plan at Healthy Mates with workplace injuries is to assess and diagnose the individual first. Physiotherapists first evaluate the injury through a comprehensive assessment. They look at the affected area, assess any functional limitations and look at contributing factors within the work environment. From here, a tailored management plan is created to help restore function, reduce pain, and get you back to doing the things and activities you enjoy.
The facilities at Healthy Mates allow for rehabilitation through tall phases of work-related injuries. Within the early phases of injuries, our hydrotherapy pools will be the place to get your rehabilitation started, accompanied by our manual therapy techniques to reduce your pain, such as dry needling, massage, joint mobilisations or taping and bracing. For the later stages of rehabilitation, our fully equipped gym will ensure you have the strength to return to work, no matter how big or small the task.
Sciatica
Sciatica is nerve pain caused by irritation of the sciatic nerve. This usually presents with pain around the hip or buttocks and travels down the leg, even to the calf. Understandably, this can be very debilitating for patients and have a significant impact on daily life.
There can be many causes of sciatica; therefore, it is essential to establish the cause of your problem to treat it effectively. Vertebral dysfunction, disc pain, muscle spasms, poor lifting technique, or spinal compression or degeneration can cause sciatica.
Our physiotherapist will undertake an in-depth assessment of your body’s posture and biomechanics to get to the bottom of the cause of pain. Treatment involves pain management, massage, dry needling, exercise prescriptions, and hydrotherapy to relieve symptoms and restore functionality. Exercise prescription plays an integral part in the rehabilitation of sciatica. You will be prescribed exercises to address any limitations you may have, whether these be weakness, core strength, or flexibility. Our therapists will prescribe the correct exercises to help you fix your limitations.
Pregnancy Related Musculoskeletal Pain
Pregnancy musculoskeletal problems are disorders that affect the bones, joints, muscles and nerves of pregnant women. They are caused by the changes in the body and hormones that occur during pregnancy. These problems are widespread, cause pain and discomfort, and impact daily life.
Many women are not aware that a physiotherapist can help with many pregnancy and postpartum issues, such as C-section recovery and pelvic floor issues. At Healthy Mates, we work with you to help assess, diagnose, and manage your pain. Hydrotherapy is a great way to safely exercise pre or postpartum whilst also providing pain relief. Gentle massage and hands-on techniques can be used to manage your pain, as well as advice and education regarding what not to do when pregnant.
Our Physiotherapists can help to manage your pain, improve your quality of life and allow for better mobility whilst managing your pregnancy-related pain.