A nutritionist generally works more one on one with clients in a clinical setting. 

Most nutritionists adopt a holistic approach to case taking and treatment.  This means that they will look at the functioning of all your body systems including areas such as digestion, metabolism, hormones, energy levels and sleep to name just a few.  

Nutritionists will also look at diet, lifestyle and levels of stress to assess the nutritional requirements for their clients.  This individualised assessment and treatment stems from the concept of bio-individuality - that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach when it comes to achieving optimal health.  Every client is viewed as a unique individual with highly individualised nutritional and energy requirements, body compositions, metabolism, backgrounds and lifestyles that all influence their overall health and the foods that make them feel at their best. 

It is important to note however that these are general guidelines and there will be dietitians who adopt more of a holistic approach as well as nutritionists that tend to adopt more of a dietetics approach.  

When looking for the appropriate practitioner for you it is important to ensure that the dietitian or nutritionist has a professional membership with an appropriate association.  This will ensure that they have the necessary qualifications, are held to specific legal and ethical standards and have ongoing Continuing Professional Education requirements.  

Some people may call themselves a nutritionist or nutrition consultant when they have in fact only undertaken a few nutrition subjects.  This is why it is imperative to ensure your practitioner is appropriately qualified so that you can be sure that you are dealing with someone who can provide you with the most accurate and up to date nutritional information. 

Stay tuned for Kate's next article in January. 

In the meantime, if you wish to get in touch with Kate phone  0423 493 330 or click the button below. 

In most cases, however, it is rarely recommended that they undergo rehabilitation, and will often be passed off as just a “sore” back, knee, or shoulder etc, in the hope that it will just get better with time. This is a frequent occurrence, and prolonging the intervention will in most cases eventuate into something more serious. Often people are unable to continue working, lose mobility and have to reduce their level of recreational activity for example sport, exercise, fishing, gardening.

With all injuries minor or severe, rehabilitation is needed for recovery. Missing early rehabilitation time frames for any type of injury can drastically decrease the likelihood of complete recovery. It can also drastically decrease the full return to all active daily livings, recreational activities, and life as they know it.

Early Allied Health interventions such as Physiotherapy, Exercise Physiology, Occupational Therapy and Podiatry after an accident, have been shown to produce greater recovery rates and significantly decrease the risk of long-term health issues arising from accidents. These interventions are not solely utilised for major injuries causing hospitalisation, but also seemingly non-sinister injuries including but not limited to strains, fractures, whiplash etc. Things such as a stiff neck and even a sore back can cause movement issues as well as wear and tear, and these relatively small issues can lead to major concerns in the long run. ^1,2

Rehabilitation treatments provided, do not have to be manual therapy “hands-on” treatment. Working on basic building block movements and providing education about injuries can be just as effective. Re-educating personal injury sufferers, on how to move correctly is vital when returning to normal daily activities pain-free. It is imperative that Mental stressors caused by injuries, can also play a vital role in recovery, and this needs to be addressed once again, as soon as possible. ^{3, 4}

In today’s society, 1 in 3 adults are not achieving the recommended physical activity, as well as 1 in 3 being overweight or obese. These statistics also represent significant negative impacts on quality of life and general overall health. If you combine these statistics with people not seeking help after an accident, then this is a recipe for disaster. ⁵

In general, people need to be physically active to help with quality of life, and this should be no different after a motor vehicle accident. Prescribed rehabilitation and physical movements can be all the difference between returning to work, regular pain free living and a long term healthy life. Don’t increase your stress levels after an accident by not looking after yourself. Early Allied Health has proven to be effective for everyone, and should be sought after as soon as possible!

Stay tuned for another article from the Doveston Health Team in January. 

In the meantime, if you wish to get in touch with Nathan regarding this article, physiotherapy after an accident or any other health-related issues, please visit the Doveston Health website or click the button below. 

Long-term outcomes of individuals injured in motor vehicle crashes: A population-based study. Alghnam S, Wegener ST, Bhalla K, Colantuoni E, Castillo R., 2015

Outcomes of motor vehicle crashes with fracture: a pilot study of early rehabilitation interventions. Brooke KJ1, Faux SG, Wilson SF, Liauw W, Bowman M, Klein L., 2014

Predictors of non-return to work 2 years post-injury in road traffic crash survivors: Results from the UQ SuPPORT study., Heron-Delaney M, Warren J, Kenardy JA, 2017

Delayed recovery in patients with whiplash-associated disorders.Dufton JA1, Bruni SG, Kopec JA, Cassidy JD, Quon J., 2012

The Lancet, Volume 384, Issue 9945 react-text: 64, Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013: 65 30 August–5 September 2014 /react-text react-text: 66, Pages 766-781

I can do one better and show you. Watch the video below where Dr Matthew Platz demonstrates what a typical back examination involves.

Chiropractors look for different movement patterns in the back which may show how a patient has been guarding their painful back and set up stiff joints and imbalanced muscle in an attempt to keep working with their problem. They may have been putting up with a problem for weeks and only come to the chiro when their medication stops working, their sleep is affected, or their partner is worried that they are not improving.

Chiros assess the neck, back and pelvis for joint stiffness and compare the patient’s current movement patterns in comparison to normal movements that a young person should be able to do and decide on the actual underlying cause for a patient’s pain or dysfunction or reduced sporting performance.

Chiros often see patients with back pain AS A RESULT OF guarding or adapting for a longer term hip or knee issue. The muscles that attach to the hip and knee often begin up at the pelvic area and begin to create stiffness and pain in the back when overworking to accommodate for a knee or hip issue.

Chiros work with hip, leg and knee problems as well to assist in settling the back issue.

Assuming that the problem is identified as restrictions or mechanical locking of key spinal joints, the treatment usually involves precise spinal manipulation and self-stretching at home to retrain spinal muscles and joints to move in efficient patterns. 

As symptoms improve and activities of daily living return to normal, increasingly challenging exercises are prescribed to help stabilise the spine and improve its capacity to do all that the patient wants to do. This differs from some other approaches that may give exercises earlier and may not allow the body to deal with the joint dysfunction part of the problem. Workplace advice such as desk set up and moving and exercise customisation completes the management plan.

Stay tuned for another article from Andrew in January. 

In the meantime, if you have any questions regarding this interview, treatment of back pain or other health issues please do not hesitate to contact Andrew and the rest of the team by visiting the Andrew Vincent Chiropractic website.

Andrew Vincent Chiropractic offer massage and nutritional support alongside their chiropractic services to ensure a whole lifestyle change is possible. 

Whether you have rolled your ankle, broken a rib or torn a ligament, your body goes through the same painful and uncomfortable process to repair itself. 

We sat down with Nick Marshall from Surf Life Physio in Miami, QLD earlier this month to get a better understanding of the recovery journey. Nick has over 17 years' experience as a physiotherapist, having practised both privately for his own practice Surf Life Physio and as a senior outpatient physio for Tweed Heads Hospital.

This article starts the first of three interviews on injury recovery. Nick gives his insights on the first 72 hours of an injury and provides tips on how best to manage this stage.

Keep an eye out for the next two articles on what happens after this initial phase and for Nick's advice on how to speed up the recovery process. 

Immediately following hurting yourself you enter the inflammatory stage.

You've injured yourself and now it's time for your body to fix itself by finding the damage, reducing further risk of injury and laying the first foundations for repair.

This is the period of time when the injury is sore all the time no matter what you do or how you try to carry the injured area. It’s the body's pathological protective response. 

Trying to describe the recovery process is confusing, jargon-filled and to be frank, a little boring. So, I let's look at the process through a real-world example. 

Let's take a house fire and call that our injury. The moment the fire is detected, the emergency services are dispatched. These being Fire, Police and Ambulance.

The body’s general response to this inflammatory stage is 72 hours. But largely what you do and how you behave during those initial minutes following the injury will dictate whether it is more or less than 72 hours.

This phase is generally represented by three symptoms:

1. Heat and redness: blood is rushed to the injured area to bring resources needed to repair the injury. This pools around the injury causing redness and heat. 
2. Swelling: this is often a result of fluid seeping through damaged blood vessels into the damaged tissues. These vessels are typically damaged by the initial trauma. In some cases, this will present as bruising. 
3. Pain: this is the big one. When you first sustain the injury, pain is caused initially by a chemical reaction that interacts with local pain receptors to warn your body you have sustained an injury. This is the pain we were talking about during the 'police' activities in this recovery stage. As you recover, the increased inflammation in the area may place pressure on nerve endings in the area, causing further pain. This pain will inevitably limit function, movement and activity.

There are a number of acronyms that can be used for treatment in this early inflammatory stage. But probably the best message is first and foremost ‘do no harm’.

To achieve this most health practitioners will advise the injured person to commence R.I.C.E.

It might sound strange given we talk about our immediate treatment being to reduce swelling with the R.I.C.E. method but we actually want to avoid anti-inflammatory medication in the first 72 hours.

Despite what so many people think, we actually need the body's inflammatory response and inflammation to start a healing effect. It’s this inflammation that brings all the building blocks of repair and without inflammation, an injury will not heal properly.

We want to reduce the inflammatory response to make it more comfortable but not remove it completely. 

Absolutely, you see it in elite sport when you are watching TV. The first person to an injured player on the field is the physiotherapist. If for no other reason than determine the level and extent of injury and then to make an educated assessment of the ability of the player to continue to play. It’s no different off the field. 

Quick and early identification, assessment and diagnosis of a person’s injury can better frame the rehab process as well as fast track a rehabilitation plan and return to work.

Check out the other parts in this series below.

Stay tuned next month for Nick's interview on stage 2 of the recovery process.

In the meantime, if you have any questions regarding these tips, injury recovery or other health issues please do not hesitate to contact Nick and his team at Surf Life Physio on (07) 5527 7830 or click the button below.

This is a very in depth question but I will do my best to keep it short and simple.

To understand that pain doesn’t equal damage you need to wrap your noggin around pain itself. Pain is, 100% of the time, an output of the brain. It does not come from the tissues but from the brain interpreting data and evaluating whether said data is harmful to you. Pain acts a protective mechanism. It is there to stop you doing dumb things and hurting yourself. The brains takes into account not only the signals from tissues, but also draws on past experiences, emotional state, current stress levels, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes…the list goes on. The brain and central nervous system (CNS) does an incredible job in processing all this data in an instant, but occasionally it makes mistakes and can give you the sensation of pain when really there isn’t any damage happening.

Tissue damage commonly goes hand in hand with acute pain, but not always. You sprained your ankle, it hurts like a b#$%* but typically heals up in a few weeks and you’re encouraged to stay active. On the flip side you can bend over one morning to tie your shoes and your back seizes up, again hurts like a b#$%* but it doesn’t necessarily mean tissue damage. You haven’t slipped a disc, there’s no nerve root compression it’s just painful and stiff, and takes a little time and TLC to get back to doing the things you love. The brain, for whatever reason, doesn’t like that bending move even though you’ve done it a thousand times before, and it locks up the low back. Tight muscles, stiff joints and super wired nerves can give you a great deal of misery.

There’s a really interesting case about a construction worker that ended up with a metal pole sticking straight through his boot. The guy was in agony, screaming the house down. They got him to hospital and cut the boot off. Turns out the pole had gone between his toes. Didn’t break any bones, didn’t even pierce the skin. Once he saw it he calmed down and very soon wasn’t feeling a thing. But because he thought he would have a gaping hole in his foot, his brain had conjured up the pain! Now ask him at the time and he would have sworn on dear old Nana’s life the pain was real, not in his head. This is a case of the brain misprocessing data, and creating the output of pain.

This is a very complex topic but there are some great Youtube videos that break it down nicely. Check out ‘Understanding Pain in less than 5 minutes, and what to do about it!’ and also ‘TEDxAdelaide - Lorimer Moseley - Why Things Hurt’.

In terms of severe low back pain, an almost countless number of things, but there are a few main ones we see at Queen Street Physiotherapy.

Here are the main nasties/red flags we look out for in low back pain.

There are other red flags which physio’s look for, but the above are the more serious ones that need urgent attention.

There are a lot of great products out there that can help ease back pain.

I personally love a hot pack and my trusty trigger point ball.

Heat can help locally at the site of pain, makes it feel warm and snug. But also can decrease the ‘pain signals’ getting to the brain by giving the nerves something else to report to the brain…in this case, heat.

My trigger ball also gets a good workout. Triggering tight musculature around the low back can help a lot. I go for my glutes and ITB, but also the bigger muscles in the back, QL and erector spinae. If you don’t know these you’ll need to be shown by your physio. And if the trigger ball is too intense you can use a foam roller instead.

If you missed last month's article from Queen Street Physiotherapy on whether exercise and movement is bad for back pain, check it out below.

Stay tuned for another article from the Queen Street Physiotherapy team in January. 

In the meantime, if you have any questions regarding this interview, treatment of back pain or other health issues please do not hesitate to contact Donovan and the rest of the team by visiting the Queen Street Physiotherapy website.

Queen St Physiotherapy offers ergonomic advice, podiatry, custom made orthotics, running assessment, hydrotherapy, dry needling, remedial massage, exercise and stretching programs.