DiMs, SiMs, the Protectometer & my personal journey through pain.

September 29, 2015 by Sian Smale

This blog is personal and emotional and it is real. It is about me...

After attending the CPTA conference and listening to Lorimer Moseley discuss current scientific knowledge and experience with treating pain, I realised how much my personal journey has been guided by this work. The is one specific reason I wish to share this story with you….. the journey and how much my thinking and knowledge has changed. Not often do we have the opportunity to share the entire journey of recovery with a patient and to see how each element comes in and out of play. So this is mine and hopefully it provides you with an example of how the Explain Pain education material and model is integrated into real life.

Deciphering the driving mechanisms in chronic low back pain

September 24, 2015 by Sian Smale

When it comes to discussing the diagnosis of low back pain (LBP) there are times when it is really hard to put a label on pain because it is hard to say is it one specific thing. Such a blurry diagnosis. In fact 85-90% of people with LBP are in this category making the blurry diagnosis the majority. The O'Sullivan system is a framework that aims to identify the main drivers and mechanisms of pain and dysfunction. Where movement is associated with pain, the classification considers if the movement is protective or maladaptive? This blog is all about this framework, breaking it down step by step, to help others see how using this classification system makes a complex pain disorder less complicated.

Fueling for Your Half Marathon

September 19, 2015 by Sian Smale

This week we are side-stepping from Physiotherapy and discussing nutrition in sports and I'm thrilled to introduce Casey Keane-Miller (RD, CSSD) a Registered Dietitian and Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics who lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. Casey shares her advice about choosing the right fuels for training and competing. There are some great tips throughout this blog, which can be applied to training for a marathon, half marathon and other long distance endurance events.

The Neuromatrix of pain overlaps with the functional neuroanatomy of sleep

September 17, 2015 by Sian Smale

The previous blog explored the research showing how the relationship between pain and sleep is bidirectional. What explains this two-way relationship? Many of the articles suggested it is due to the multiple functions of neurotransmitters. Curious to know more about the overlap in functional areas of the brain involved in sleep and pain, I decided to compare the regions of the brain involved in wake and sleep and the neuromatrix.

The bidirectional relationship between sleep disorders and pain conditions

September 15, 2015 by Sian Smale

The primary problem I treat as a Physiotherapist is pain. Despite the link between pain and sleep being extensively studied over the past few decades, I know little about what the research has found. What I've come to understand is that the bidirectional relationship between sleep and medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease also extends to pain disorders. I'm curious about how many people suffer from chronic pain conditions and concurrent sleep disorders? This blog looks more closely at what we currently know from research about sleep and pain.

Can we pick the clinical signs of excessive sleepiness & sleep disorders?

September 11, 2015 by Sian Smale

There is a strong bidirectional relationship between sleep disorders and serious medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease, depression, hypertension and cerebrovascular disease. The purpose of this blog is to broaden your knowledge about common sleep disorders and to understand what questions can be incorporated into the subjective examination to improve patient assessment and identification of sleep disorders.