Physio and the youth of today: a hot topic with summer sports and activity in full swing.
Physiotherapy is as much about prevention as rehabilitation, and this is particularly true of youngsters. You see they don’t have the nagging aches and pains that the rest of us experience as we age. However, injuries do occur more often than kids or parents realise.
Injury among the young is often missed because they themselves are less aware of its impact. They might simply see it as an inconvenience that resulted in them not running as fast or scoring the winning goal. Secondly, because they are resilient, they will bounce back quicker, resulting in a problem at a later time or even later in life. Plus, injuries can occur because the warm-up has been brief or even non-existent.
Physiotherapists are trained in all aspects of treating injuries, with early intervention achieving the best results. They can also provide exercises to improve strength and help with flexibility to avoid further damage or new injuries. Our very own Isabel Howse is an excellent example and our resident physiotherapist who specialises in dance injuries.
Having worked with The Royal Ballet in their upper and lower schools, she is highly experienced in working with dancers through their training and development years, focusing on correcting dance technique to prevent injury recurrence.
Did you see the clue there?
Physio is not only for when things go wrong, to get the patient back out onto the field or the dancer back on the stage. There are far more and, in fact, greater benefits to working with a physiotherapist.
1. Strength and conditioning when younger can provide lifelong access to sport and activity.
2. Teaching them to listen to their body and the messages it’s sending results in treatment being accessed early.
3. Providing exercises to suit individual need and areas of weakness and creating an understanding of the importance of warming up (and down).
4. Ensuring nothing stops them from becoming the next Usain Bolt or Victoria Pendleton or …
5. Simply enjoying general activity so they might benefit from good health and wellbeing.
Of course, your child or youth doesn’t need to be sporty to need or benefit from physio. Their bones, ligaments and muscles are extremely vulnerable during their growth bursts, and we are here for all young people.
With eight physios at Sarum Physio, we pride ourselves on being able to offer your child the right treatment with the right specialist. In addition, we have highly experienced sports injury practitioners.
