Kirstin Weible, PT, ScD, COMT Pickleball is one of the fastest growing sports in the United States. In fact, 4.8 million people were playing last year. The sport has been around for 50 years, but the pandemic saw a soaring increase in popularity. In 2021, the average age of US pickleball players was 38, down from 2020 when the average age was …
What is a Meniscus Injury?
The meniscus is a piece of cartilaginous tissue that exists between your femur and tibia right at the joint line. There are actually two parts – the medial and lateral meniscus. Together, these pieces of cartilage help to distribute forces in the knee, stabilize the knee, and provide some information about knee position in space. There is some evidence that …
Are Meniscus Tears a Serious Injury?
One of the most common things we see in our clinic is knee pain. Acute knee injuries are usually swollen, warm, stiff, painful. It may be difficult to put weight on your knee or bend it. We often are asked whether the knee injury means surgery is needed and what the prognosis is for the knee pain resolving over time. …
Part III: What Do Airplane Crashes Have to Do with Unnecessary Surgeries?
The New Healthcare: A 3 Part Series I’m sure you remember it, even now. Earlier this year, a woman was sitting in her seat on a Southwest airliner, a model known as the CFM56, when the window she was seated next to suddenly burst open. She died. It was the first in-flight fatality in the 47-year history of Southwest Airlines. …
Manual Therapy: What is it and Why Should You Care?
I’m just returning from a visit to the annual conference of the American Academy of Orthopedic Manual Physical Therapists (AAOMPT) in Reno, Nevada. The wonderful thing about the AAOMPT conference is that you’re constantly surrounded by physical therapists that have contributed so much to our profession and are on a continual journey of lifelong learning. I’ve been to the conference …
Part 2: Why Time Matters in Healthcare
The New Healthcare: A 3 Part Series Let me describe my last doctor’s visit. It was for what I thought was a trivial condition (I had a red patch of skin that hadn’t gone away for months) and so I went online and scheduled an appointment with a dermatologist. I chose one that had signed a contract with my …
What Everyone is Getting Wrong with Hip Bursitis
If you’ve ever had sharp pain in the side of your hip upon taking a step, it’s possible that you’ve been told you had hip bursitis. But let’s get one thing straight: “hip bursitis” is an old-fashioned name. The condition is now being called “gluteal tendinopathy” or “greater trochanteric pain syndrome.” These newer names emphasize that the bursa isn’t the …