arthritis Archives

20Feb 2023 by Patrick Donovan

3 Strategies for Bone Health

Prevention

3 Strategies for Bone Health Bone loss is considered the "silent thief" of aging. You can’t see it like you can with muscle loss (or grey hairs!). When I talk about bone health in the clinic, I am more interested in your unique fracture profile. How likely are you to fall? What faulty movement patterns are you using? Are you engaged with a bone-centered diet? With the right strategies, we can reduce your fall risk profile. Please don't wait - you can start today. Today, we have three videos for your indulgence. 1. Three strategies to improve bone health 2. An effective exercise to improve posture 3. Recommendations for adequate protein intake to prevent osteoporosis." 3 Bone Building Strategies Those with low bone mass may be asking: is walking enough…

02Jan 2023 by Patrick Donovan

2 Tips For Hip and Osteoarthritis

Health content

#1 Tip For Osteoarthritis Treatment Preservation of your hip capsule is the MOST important factor in an effective hip arthritis treatment. If you have pain with walking, difficulty with flexibility, or trouble getting off the toilet - it could be your hip capsule tightness that is limiting you. You can't move what you can't access. If it's not strength, not muscle flexibility, it could be a tight hip joint capsule that's limiting your success. Do I Have Hip Arthritis? Hip arthritis pain is really only one thing - annoying. It annoys your daily walking, and your Zumba class, and can even annoy your sleep. The first step in treatment is making sure your symptoms align with the proper diagnosis. Check out this video to see if you meet the following…

03Nov 2022 by Patrick Donovan

5 Exercises for Knee Strengthening with Osteoarthritis

Health content

Strength training is hard with knee pain. Trust me, I've had three knee surgeries, and often struggle with it too. This week, we are providing resources for people that are looking for osteoarthritis treatment at the gym safely and effectively. The exercises we'll be covering in this video are: Kitchen sink squat Heel rock back Bentover row, and Knee blocked squat. Knee Blocked Squats Too much force through the knees is often a cause of knee pain. We can use the prop of a box, door frame, or chair to encourage a backwards weight shift. This recruits the hamstrings and glutes to do their very important job. I like to try this exercise with folks that have knee pain with squatting, going from sitting to standing, and rising from…

26Sep 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Modify Your Risk of Chronic Disease

Health content

Most people are aware of the common risk factors for their health. Smoking, drinking, and eating unhealthy foods - all can contribute to chronic conditions. I enjoy having a beer with my friends, and I know that that might not always be good for me. It is important that these activities be weighed against the overall risk to your life. Today, we're going to tackle the biggest three risk factors over the next few videos. Today, we'll be focusing on aging. I would encourage you to just pay special attention to these as you go through your day. First, some important terms to define: Risk Factor: something that increases risk Chronic Disease: a broad term for a condition that lasts more than 1 year and requires ongoing medical attention. Aging I'm gonna…

24Aug 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Why Strong Bones Matter

Health content

Hi everyone, Dr. Donovan here. Really excited to share what we have today on why bones matter. It's something I educate people a lot on in the clinic; how their osteoporosis profile relates to what they can do, and what they maybe shouldn't do. All of these include lifestyle modifications and different ways of moving your spine and hips to help protect them over time. Most importantly, they lower your fall risk. Lowering your fall risk will mitigate any risk of acute fracture. When we discuss osteoporosis, we're talking about bone mineral density and osteopenia. It is most common in older adults and mainly postmenopausal women, but that doesn't mean you should stop caring about your bones even if you don't have a degenerative bone disease; it's something to maintain…

22Jun 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Finding The Right Quad Strengthening Exercise

Health content

Today, we're going to find the right quad strengthening exercise for you. We want you to have the most precise leg strengthening variation that works for your strengthening routine. Let's take us through some real-life examples you've noticed in the past few years: You can only garden two hours before you need a break You can't quite keep up with your younger friend on a hike. You're in the functional category of aging, and you're ready to increase your strength. So you performed the 30-second sit-to-stand test from the last video and you scored 11 reps that place you securely in the functional category of aging fitness. So why not make a goal of 15 reps to place you in the fun category? So now that you've measured your quad…

18May 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Building Physical Resilience Part 2

Health content

"Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce back." - Vivian Komori I've always referred to this when talking to our patients. We want to be able to bounce right back to where we started when we have a negative stressor. These negative events and setbacks in our life are inevitable, but we want to pop back up. I encourage you all to think differently ahead of your potential next setback. With aging, these setbacks get even harder to bounce back from. When people with less resiliency have a setback, they don't quite bounce back right to where they started. Whether they're in the hospital for a night, or something negative happened emotionally in their lives, it's hard to bounce back.…

25Apr 2022 by Patrick Donovan

How to Build Physical Resilience

Health content

Physical resilience is our ability to bounce back following a negative health stressor. Whether it's stress-related or a physical injury, building a reservoir of resilience allows room for setbacks in life. Health stressors come in many different shapes and sizes. They could be the emotional toll of taking care of your spouse, they could be an acute injury or even cancer treatment. These setbacks are unavoidable and often unpredictable. So how do we physically bounce back from events we can't even prepare for? We become a rubber band. The strongest most, flexible rubber band we can. A rubber band encapsulates our collective strength flexibility endurance and overall fitness the more we can pull our bodies safely in each direction, the less likely we are to encounter a pulled hamstring, back…

04Apr 2022 by Patrick Donovan

The Lifespan of Health

Health content, Prevention

We all have been raised by hearing the most famous proverb, "Health is Wealth". This proverb indicates that nothing is more important than good health, but as we grow up, a significant deterioration can be noticed in our health. The branch of physical health and sciences did amazing wonders in the sciences and paved new ways for people to enjoy a long healthy life as much as possible. Physical therapy is also a part of this phenomenon that is leading wonders to people's lives. This branch of wonders constitutes therapists who provide services to individuals and make efforts to restore, develop and maintain the utmost movement and functional ability for the whole Span of life as the active movement is an integral component of good health. Physical Therapy brings an…

11Nov 2020 by Brigitte B

How to Improve Your Hand Arthritis Without Surgery

Arthritis, Health content, Pain

It seems the older we get, the harder it is to perform precision movements like buttoning shirts or grip tasks like picking up a fork or opening a jar. Hand arthritis can cause joint damage and is one of the health conditions that can accelerate the hand’s aging. Hand arthritis can make it hard to complete mundane tasks with our fingers. But with physical therapy, you can stop and sometimes even reverse the effects of hand arthritis. Hand osteoarthritis vs. hand rheumatoid arthritis We hear a lot about arthritis in the hands, hips and knees. Two primary types of arthritis can cause pain in the hands. Osteoarthritis (OA) is by far the more common of the two, with 32.5 million adults suffering from it. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) affects a much smaller percentage…