Sleep More, Hurt Less

March 30, 2017 by Sian Smale

This week we are excited to welcome guest writer and soon-to-be Physical Therapist Sara Suddes to Rayner & Smale. I met Sara while teaching at UCSF and was excited to hear about the topic for her final-year evidence based practice presentation. Before transferring in PT school, Sara worked as a newspaper reporter. Sara has spent many months researching the bidirectional relationship between sleep and pain and has put her brilliant writing skills to use to share with us her thoughts about sleep and pain.

Asking Why - Finding Meaning Behind our Questions.

March 23, 2017 by Sian Smale

Asking why isn't always easy. When you put the onus back on the patient to try get them to problem solve their own issue it has the potential of coming across as not knowing the answer. That's not true and when I ask why, I am literally just curious to find out more information and dig a little deeper. This is a different post for me, a little less evidence-based and fact-filled and a little more reflective on lessons from the past and reinforces the importance of a thorough subjective examination

Cricket Case Study

March 16, 2017 by Alicia Rayner

Working in cricket the past 2 years, I have seen many athletes who experience pain after bowling. Tim is a very typical case, presenting with low back pain following bowling.

Lateral Epicondylalgia - Treatment Considerations

March 09, 2017 by Sian Smale

Welcome back to part two of the lateral epicondylalgia series. In this section we are going to focus on treatment considerations and commonly used manual therapy techniques and exercise prescription. This is the first blog that focusses on using Mulligan mobilisation with movement techniques (MWMs) for the treatment of pain.

Lateral Epicondylalgia - Pathophysiology & Clinical Assessment

February 24, 2017 by Sian Smale

This is a two-part series looking at the pathophysiology, clinical assessment and treatment of a common elbow pain condition, lateral epicondylalgia. In this blog we discuss new research that explains the complexities of this condition, why tennis elbow and epicondylitis are terms no longer used and how our assessment should be structured.

Graded Motor Imagery

February 16, 2017 by Sian Smale

Graded motor imagery is a key treatment approach for patient with chronic pain conditions. It is a biopsychosocial approach that address all aspects of how a person lives with their pain. GMI uses motor imagery to retrain movement neurotags without activating pain neurotags and follows a suggest graded pathway from left/right discrimination through to mirror therapy.