AzOPT Physical Therapy We often hear the question, “What caused this?” when chatting with patients about their unexplained pain. Unless there was a specific moment or injury that preceded the symptoms, the reality is we are often unable to truly pinpoint the exact cause. When symptoms randomly or slowly develop, our best option is to…
Tag: 2 Your Health
Features, February 2020
2 Your Health: Spinal Decompression through Position and Breathing
Jim Mulroy, PT Did you know that you can use deep diaphragmatic breathing to decompress your spine to help relieve pain? We all live with some form of spinal compression caused by gravity, ground reaction forces, ligaments, and muscular contractions. When a person stands upright, the lumbar spine can compress up to 55% of our…
Features, February 2020
2 Your Health: Lumbar Spinal Stenosis
Marc M. Soloman, MD The lower (lumbar) spine is made up of five vertebrae (bones) bodies in the lower back and is the physical center of the body. These bones are the largest and strongest since they support and carry the weight of the muscles and bones above it. A normal, healthy spine has lumbar…
Features, August 2019
2 Your Health: Common types of dizziness and vertigo
Tyler Guymon, AZOPT Buckeye clinic manager and doctor of physical therapy If you have ever woken up one day experiencing symptoms of dizziness and vertigo without knowing why, you are not alone. While many cases of dizziness and vertigo can be traced to a specific incident, many times, patients can’t recall the moment these symptoms…
Features, April 2019
2 Your Health: Breathe better for better health
Jim Mulroy, PT, MPT, AZOPT Glendale Physical Therapist The average person breathes 21,000 times a day, 12-20 times per minute and ventilates six-ten liters of air per minute. The primary breathing muscle in our body is the diaphragm. Good diaphragmatic breathing uses less secondary breathing muscles which lessen the chance of developing neck, head and…
Features, February 2019
2 Your Health: How do I stretch?
Daniel Cox, DPT, AZOPT Glendale Doctor of Physical Therapy This is a question we often get from our patients and the simple answer is, it depends on your goals. There can be a lot of uncertainty about the most effective way to do it, and why it’s even beneficial to stretch. There are two main…
Features, December 2018
2 Your Health: Five stretches you should perform before hiking
Tyler Guymon, DPT Stretching properly safeguards your body from injuries and makes certain your body is trail ready. Stretches are best done after five minutes of hiking when your muscles are warmed up. Stretching cold muscles is not effective and may cause muscle strains. One quick reminder: an appropriate stretch should give you a little…
Features, November 2018
2 Your Health: AZOPT – How physical therapy treats Parkinson’s Disease
Celeste Delap, DPT, LSVT BIG certified, CCI, AZOPT Goodyear Physical Therapist Parkinson’s disease is an incurable, progressive disorder of the nervous system that gradually affects movement. In the United States, Parkinson’s disease occurs in 13 per 100,000 people and about 60,000 new cases are identified each year. In our West Valley, many people know someone…
Features, October 2018
2 Your Health: Why does my muscle cramp?
Brooke Smith Everyone, at some point, has experienced a muscle cramp. Whether it’s at night, after a workout or randomly throughout the day, a muscle cramp comes without warning. It can be located along the front or back of the thigh, hands, arms, calves, abdomen or foot. Muscle cramps can be very painful. Some lead…
Features, September 2018
2 Your Health: Who doesn’t like a good #SuccessStory
AZOPT Layne is an active, busy and care-giving 62-year-old woman who enjoys golf, photography, walking her dogs and was just starting to learn pickleball. Her husband was a couple months removed from getting much of his life back after completing an intensive physical therapy program called Big and Loud, specific for people facing Parkinson’s disease.…