Focus: SUMMER SPORTS, REHABILITATION AND THE PYRAMID OF RECOVERY
by Leah Leader DC
This article is not meant to diagnose or prescribe treatment for any particular condition. Please consult with a qualified chiropractor or doctor for individual cases.
In all age groups, it is important to understand how to rehabilitate the body once an athletic injury has been sustained. The Pyramid of Recovery defines a five step program for returning the athlete, professional or amateur, to the sport, to the fullest capacity possible. At the heart of this system lies the fact that until a solid foundation has been established, the athlete cannot and must not continue to the next level, lest he jeopardize his/her long term recovery.
1. Flexibility/Strength
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2. Proprioception
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3. Endurance
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4. Motor re-learning
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5. Return to sport
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Every athlete will react in a different way to an injury and will recover at a different pace. The general rule, however, allows one week of rehabilitation for every week that an athlete has been away from the activity. Furthermore, you can utilize the following algorhythm for determining the "average" recovery period.
AREA OF INJURY TIME TO RECOVERY
Skin 2-3 weeks
Muscle 4-6 weeks
Tendon, Ligament 6-8 weeks
Bone 12-16 weeks
Nerve 12-18 months
In fact, this model can be applied to any person attempting to recover pre-injury function. Within your body is a "highway" of nerves and a spinal cord which act as cables to transmit nerve impulses. Each of the estimated 70 trillion cells in your body must receive proper nerve impulses in order to function correctly. These nerve impulses or "messages" originate in different parts of the brain, travel down the spinal cord, out of the spinal cord and into different centers of the brain. This is the communication or "electrical system" of your body. The flow of this electricity" or nerve impulse is crucial for the proper function of any cell, tissue, organ or system within the body. Just as a light cannot function properly without the proper amount of electricity arriving from its source, a cell in the body can not function properly without the correct messages arriving from the brain.
Three phases define the theraputic process: first, when a patient presents to a chiropractic office in agonizing pain, the patient is said to be in the acute phase, where we aim to reduce pain and bring the person to a basic comfort level. Treatment at this time must be intense and frequent in order to decrease the inflammation and the potential for damage resulting from the injury. At the subacute phase, within a week of the initial presentation, more aggressive therapies may be used in order to return the body on the path to health. Finally, in the maintenance phase, the primary complaint has been dealt with, and now secondary compensatory issues may be addressed.
A successful rehabilitation involves the doctor, but more important involves the reclaiming of control and responsibility by the patient. Through education and emotional commitment, the person understands what he/she must do beyond the chiropractic treatment in order to restore
health and wellness. This empowerment avoids a co-dependendent or lopsided relationship with the doctor, and ensures a more lasting recovery.
8. Hot off the Web:
(a) Asthma patient testimonial
Richard Rogovin, D.C’s patient, Carol, reports:
My 4 yr. old son goes twice a month to a chiro for control of his asthma which is triggered by sinus problems. We went through conventional treatment up until last summer because of his almost constant colds, frequent bronchitis and bronchiolitis. Last Jan., he contracted pneumonia; again he had it in March; then a 3rd time in June. That third time, he ended up in the hospital for 4 days. We honestly thought we were going to lose him - we also found out that he was asthmatic. That trip to the hospital finally scared my husband and I into looking into alternative treatment for my son before we lost him. Conventional doctors did absolutely nothing as far as
preventative treatment. All they did was have us dump yet another antibiotic into him, even though they weren't working on him anymore.
We had had enough that's when we found chiropractic. Since then, we have started our son on a special diet, which means no refined sugars, no bleached flour, no chocolate (even sugar-free), nothing containing MSG, and only very rarely we let him have a piece of gum or similar treat that contains aspartame. He also gets an adjustment at least twice monthly (more if he needs it), and he takes the supplements Histamine and Immugen.
It has worked wonders for our son - he is a completely different child. The thing that still amazes me is that the chiro cares so much about what is going on with him. He is genuinely concerned with helping my son get healthy and building his immune system up so that he doesn’t have to depend on medication to get through life. Our son is healthier than he has been in his entire life, he had had upper respiratory problems fro the time of his birth, and yet it never crossed any doctor’s mind to look for a possible cause , until now.
Our chiro now is the first person we call, not any MD. He has even seen our son on a weekend when our child was having a tough time, and then refused to accept any payment for making a trip into his office on a Sunday! I can’t say enough good things about this wonderful man - we believe he saved our son’s life. Just the fact that he cares enough to try to get to the root of my son’s problems would have been enough of a selling point for me, but the fact that he has given me a much healthier child is the biggest reward.
Believe me, it's definitely worth looking into for your child. Another added bonus to my son's chiropractic treatment is the fact that he has not been on any medication since he left the hospital last June - before then he was prescribed probably well over a thousand dollars worth of antibiotics and other medications which did nothing but postpone the inevitable, which was the worsening of his condition that finally ended him up in the hospital. I hope this helps you out - as you know, asthma is a very frightening thing to have to watch your child suffer with. The treatment that my son is getting now has taken a lot of the fear away for my family. Good Luck!
(B) Breast Cancer
The dairy industry has recently started adding recombinant bovine growth hormone (BGH) to stimulate cows to produce more milk than we're already using (and consequently, as I've heard, more subsidies are being payed to keep milk price stable). The June 20, 1997 issue of Medical Hypotheses found that estrogens, IGF-1 and organochlorines, routinely found in dairy products, are all cause for concern. In vitro studies show that breast cancer cells multiply 4-5x in the presence of IGF-1, which has growth-promoting effects in concentrations as low as 1 ng/mL. IGF-1 in milk has approximately 30x that amount and BGH doubles the concentration.
(Adapted from Health Science, Sept/Oct 1997)
TORONTO, ON -- January 23, 1998 -- Researchers at McGill University and the Harvard School of Public Health have found that an increased blood level of a specific hormone is a strong predictor of prostate cancer risk. These findings are published in this week's issue of Science and are funded, in part, by the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Initiative. The investigators found a four-fold increased risk of developing prostate cancer among men with the highest levels of a hormone called insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) compared to men who had the lowest IGF-1 levels.
"We are excited about these results because this is one of the first studies showing clinical evidence of a relationship between IGF-1 levels and cancer," said Dr. Michael Pollak, professor of medicine and oncology at McGill University. "Until now, researchers interested in prostate cancer risk factors have focused on male hormones such as testosterone, but these results open up a whole new direction of research.
"Our data shows a very strong relationship between IGF-1 levels and prostate cancer, making it the strongest known risk factor for prostate cancer."
©
ADVERSE DRUG REACTIONS MAY CAUSE OVER 100,000 DEATHS AMONG HOSPITALIZED PATIENTS EACH YEAR
Study suggests adverse drug reactions are among the top causes of death in U.S.
CHICAGO—Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in U.S. hospitals may be responsible for more than 100,000 deaths nationwide each year, making it one of the leading causes of death, according to an article in the April 14 issue of The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA).
Bruce H. Pomeranz, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues from the University of Toronto, analyzed 39 studies of ADRs in the United States to estimate the incidence of serious and fatal adverse drug reactions in hospital patients. To obtain overall incidence rates of ADRs in hospitalized patients, the researchers combined the incidence of ADRs in the hospital and the incidence of ADRs causing admission to the hospital.
The authors estimated that 2,216,000 hospital patients experienced a serious ADR and 106,000 deaths were caused by ADRs in the United States. This could account for 4.6 percent of all causes of recorded death in 1994, making these reactions between the fourth and sixth leading cause of death.
The World Health Organization defines ADRs as any noxious, unintended and undesired effect of a drug, which occurs at doses used in humans for prophylaxis [prevention], diagnosis or therapy. The authors define a serious ADR as one requiring hospitalization prolonging hospitalization, or one that is permanently disabling or results in death.
The researchers found no significant correlation between ADR incidence and year the studies were conducted. They write: "This result seems surprising since great changes have occurred over the last four decades in U.S. hospitals that should have affected the incidence of ADRs. Perhaps, while length of hospital stay is decreasing, the number of drugs per day may be rising to compensate. Therefore, while the actual incidence of ADRs has not changed over the last 32 years, the pattern of their occurrence has, undoubtedly changed," the authors write.
The authors determined that ADRs are one of the leading causes of death by using the highest and lowest possible estimates. Using the higher estimate placed ADRs as the fourth leading cause of death, behind heart disease (743,460 deaths), cancer (529,904 deaths) and stroke (150,108 deaths). Using the lower estimate placed ADRs as the sixth leading cause of death behind those previously mentioned, as well as pulmonary disease (101,077 deaths) and accidents (90,523 deaths). ADRs would then rank ahead of pneumonia and diabetes.
The authors conclude: "While our results must be viewed with some circumspection because of the heterogeneity among the studies and small biases in the sample, these data suggest that ADRs represent an important clinical issue." (JAMA. 1998;279:1200-1205)
A Gift of Sorts
I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.
I've learned that it's not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts.
I've learned that you can get by on charm for about 15 minutes. After that, you'd better know something.
I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do, but to the best you can do.
I've learned that it's not what happens to people that's important. It's what they do about it.
I've learned that no matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.
I've learned that it's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.
I've learned that it's a lot easier to react than it is to think.
I've learned that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
I've learned that you can keep going long after you think you can't.
I've learned that we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
I've learned that either you control your attitude or it controls you.
I've learned that heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.
I've learned that learning to forgive takes practice.
I've learned that there are people who love you dearly, but just don't know how to show it.
I've learned that money is a lousy way of keeping score.
I've learned that sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you're down may be the ones to help you get back up.
I've learned that sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel [or to STAY ANGRY. I can change my mind.]
I've learned that true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.
I've learned that maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them & less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.
I've learned that you should never tell a child her dreams
are unlikely or outlandish. Few things are more humiliating, and what a
tragedy it would be if she believed it.
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