THE WRONG MOVE

With all the bones intact (Not broken or removed), our body is comprised of 206 or more bones. The variation usually comes if you have an extra lumbar spine (6th Lumbar vertebra). 32 plus teeth or extra fingers or thumb. But you can't do anything with them if you do not have numerous muscles enclosed with the single Fascia running through the whole body.

For completing a simple task, your body has to undergo a complex series of movements where your brain via spinal cord orders the muscles to move  in a complicated manner. Moreover if you succeed in completing it satisfactorily your brain registers it as a success and retains the memory of sequence to use it when you do anything similar to the previous activity. Have you ever wondered how  dancers coordinate with music and do performances without forgetting the steps? Yes they do practice repeatedly till they improve their moves and the brain learns the sequence of their performance. 

   

In pain, your movement pattern gets disturbed and you abnormally use your body so that work can be done in a least painful manner. This pain avoidance behaviour is normal during acute phase of injury but after sometime you still move in an altered way as you have registered the memory of moving in particular manner. As the time passes and healing completes, these wrong movement pattern sometimes doesn't allow the pain to settle down or it transfer pain to some other site.

   

Imagine an elbow injury where you can't use your elbow effectively due to pain, so you will overload your shoulder or wrist to do your daily activities. In this case you might hike the shoulder up or modify the wrist position to finish your activities. Gradually you develop the memory of using your arm in this way and even after recovering from elbow injury overuse of shoulder or wrist may continue. This might lead to unresolved elbow pain or development of new painful site at the shoulder or wrist later on. There is a possibility that you may not remember the real reason for your pain as there was no trauma or injury to your shoulder or wrist.

With many patients complaining of pain, I always found some level of altered movement pattern which biomechanically is causing an overstress to the area under pain. With careful and detailed examination, we can find out if the person is lacking a good quality of movement around painful area. Memory building of the correct movements with focusing on building strength can greatly improve the quality of movement and will help the pain as well.

Proper education and rehabilitation of your previous injury can play a major role in preventing the future consequences of wrong movement patterns. Exercise to correct or restore normal movement pattern is beneficial if you think you have an unresolved pain at the injured area or a relative pain at different region.

Please drop your comments  if you have also noticed that you don't move right or have unresolved pain which doesn't let you survive happily.

Your Movement Expert

Dr. Kunal Vashist, PT

Senior Physiotherapist

Musculoskeletal and Orthopaedic disorders

(kvashist.physio@gmail.com)

9968302757