GBMC Physical Therapy at Owings Mills

Your neck has the important job of supporting your head and allowing you to experience the normal functions of everyday life. When you start feeling neck pain, it can really affect your ability to participate in your daily activities and can negatively impact your life. When this pain is acute, that usually means that it comes on suddenly and intensely and with almost no warning. It’s important to understand what can cause acute neck pain and how you can treat it and get back to your daily life!

What Causes Acute Neck Pain?

There are many things that can cause neck pain however it is difficult to determine the exact cause. Some common causes can include:

• Overuse or improper use
• Trauma, injury, or fractures
• Degeneration of the vertebrae
• Tumor or bone spur
• Infection
• Obesity
• Poor muscle tone
• Sprain or strain
• Muscle Tear
• Arthritis
• Herniated disk
• Pinched nerve
• Osteoporosis

You might start feeling a dull, burning, or sharp pain in your neck, numbness, tingling or stiffness and achiness that can occur anywhere along the spine. It can make it really difficult for you to feel comfortable with the slightest movements and can make it difficult to feel comfortable with daily activities like working or even chores at home.

Treating Acute Neck Pain

You can try some home remedies to help reduce some of the pain you may be experiencing. You can use hot or cold packs to help subdue some of the pain that you’re experiencing and reduce inflammation. Your doctor might recommend specific stretching and strengthening exercises to help reduce your pain. You may also take certain anti-inflammatory medications with the support of your doctor.

In severe cases, if pain cannot be managed, you may have to consider surgery to address whatever issue you might be dealing with.

Low back pain is a recurrent and sometimes persistent disorder that can result from several different known or unknown abnormalities or diseases. Risk factors include prior low back pain, poor back endurance, lifting or carrying > 25 lbs., and manual jobs. In 2019, low back pain was the number one reason for disability in the world. 

97% of low back pain is mechanical in nature. Nonspecific low back pain (meaning pain that is a symptom of an unknown cause) is the most common form of low back-related condition. 

Mechanical low back pain treatment diagnoses include: Low back strain/sprain; Degenerative disc/facets; Disc herniation; Spinal stenosis (pinching of spinal cord or nerves); Spondylosis (degenerative arthritis of the spine); Spondylolisthesis (slipping of 1 vertebra on the next); and Spinal instability. 

At MCPT, individuals with low back pain will complete a Low Back Pain Questionnaire to help our Physical Therapist assess their condition, its severity, and impact on your life, work, or exercise. 

A comprehensive Initial Evaluation will be performed that will allow our Physical Therapist to understand the nature of the patient’s specific condition. The pain, movement, or symptom that prompted the individual to seek treatment will be identified. The evaluation will include identifying other medical conditions which may complicate the individual's recovery, medical and back-related history, movement assessment (active and passive physiological movements as well as passive accessory joint movement), palpation testing, neurological testing, flexibility testing, and performance of special tests. 

An individual treatment plan is then created that may include: specific exercises designed to modulate pain (such as strengthening, PNF-based, postural, motor control, and stabilization exercises); manual therapy (such as joint mobilization and manipulation, soft tissue mobilization, myofascial release, Strain-Counterstrain, etc.); Functional Dry Needling; Modalities as indicated (such as TENS/Electrical Stimulation, Ultrasound, Mechanical Traction, moist heat, cryotherapy, etc), and the development of a concise and comprehensive Home Exercise Program. 

MCPT provides a full hour with the Physical Therapist during the Initial Evaluation. Future visits consist of a minimum of 30-40 minutes with the Physical Therapist in addition to other supervised treatment. 

 

Shoulder pain is a common complaint that affects people of all ages. Common causes include: overuse (such as from a repetitive task like washing a car or from an overhead sport such as tennis); sudden onset from a recent or past event/injury such as a fall; and gradual onset over time related to posture or age-related degenerative changes to the shoulder joint. 

Certain lifestyle factors can also predispose one to shoulder pain. These include: stress, smoking, being overweight, and overall poor health. 

Mechanical shoulder pain treatment diagnoses include:

• Rotator cuff tendonitis or tear (inflammation or a tear in the tissues connecting muscle to bone around the shoulder joint) -bursitis (inflammation of a fluid filled sac that protects the tendons in the shoulder)
• Shoulder impingement (a reduction in the space between the rotator cuff tendons and the acromion bone in the shoulder)
• Frozen shoulder (thickening and tightening of the thick tissue around the shoulder joint)
• Shoulder instability (the upper arm bone is not held firmly in the shoulder joint)
• Shoulder osteoarthritis (a gradual wearing of the articular cartilage in the shoulder joint)
• Post surgical diagnoses such as a rotator cuff repair or total shoulder replacement

At MCPT, individuals with shoulder pain will complete a shoulder specific questionnaire as well a medical history to help the Physical Therapist assess their condition, its severity, and impact on their life, work, or exercise. 

A comprehensive Initial Evaluation will be performed that will allow our Physical Therapist to understand the nature of the patient’s specific condition and diagnosis. The pain, movement, or symptom that prompted the individual to seek treatment will be identified. The evaluation will include identifying other medical conditions which may complicate your recovery, medical and neck or back-related problems, movement assessment (active and passive physiological movements as well as passive accessory joint movement), palpation testing, neurological testing, flexibility testing, and performance of special tests. 

An individual treatment plan is then created that may include: specific exercises designed to modulate pain (such as strengthening, PNF-based, postural, motor control, and stabilization exercises); manual therapy (such as joint mobilization, soft tissue mobilization, myofascial release, Strain-Counterstrain, etc.); Functional Dry Needling; Modalities as indicated (such as TENS/Electrical Stimulation, Ultrasound, moist heat, ice, etc), and the development of a concise and comprehensive Home Exercise Program. 

MCPT provides a full hour with the Physical Therapist during the Initial Evaluation. Future visits consist of a minimum of 30-40 minutes with the Physical Therapist in addition to other supervised treatment 

 

Feel like you’ve strained or pulled a muscle? If so, you may be wondering what you can do to manage the discomfort, stiffness and other problems that come with this minor but incredibly common injury. Did you know that our Owings Mills, MD, physical therapists can also help those with muscle strains?

About Muscle Strains

You might think a pulled muscle isn’t a big deal, but it can take anywhere from four to eight weeks for the pulled muscle to fully recover, depending on what muscle is affected and the severity of the strain. Most people will choose to treat a muscle strain at home with the RICE method (aka rest, ice, compression and elevation); however, if you don’t notice an improvement in your symptoms within 24 hours, it’s time to turn to our team. Chiropractic care can promote optimal healing and a faster recovery so you can get back to what you love most.

Treating Muscle Strains Through Chiropractic Care

Our chiropractor team will evaluate your injury to determine if you are dealing with a strain. There are various techniques that we can use to treat your muscle strain, including:

Spinal Manipulation

By gently manipulating and moving the joints and tissues, we can promote better blood flow to these areas to drive nutrients from the blood into the injured muscle to stimulate the body’s natural healing processes. Regular spinal manipulation sessions can realign the spine and improve nerve function, as well as range of motion and flexibility in the tendons, ligaments and joints. Regular manipulation therapy sessions can provide fast relief for strained or pulled muscles.

Active Release Technique

Active release technique (ART) helps break up adhesions (aka scar tissue) in the injured muscles and tissue to reduce pain, stiffness and limited mobility. Through gentle manipulation of the soft tissue, our chiropractor can restore range of motion and flexibility in the muscles, joints and nerves.

Icing and Home Care

While chiropractic care can certainly provide your body with the healing care it needs when home care isn’t enough, that doesn’t mean that rest, icing and other home care don’t work. We can recommend specific exercises and other simple, conservative measures you should be following at home to manage symptoms while the muscle strain heals. Along with the techniques we offer, home care can provide you with ample relief.

Restore Pelvic Floor Function and Strength, and Regain your Quality of Life.

Find the relief you are looking for from pelvic pain and discomfort, urge or stress incontinence, bladder or bowel dysfunction and pregnancy or post partum conditions through specialized treatment known as pelvic floor physical therapy. We welcome both male and female patients for many different diagnoses and conditions as listed below. 

Most of our pelvic floor patients are referred by various medical specialists which ensures that other serious medical conditions have been ruled out. 

Our practice also sees all types of patients with all kinds of orthopedic, musculoskeletal or neurological conditions we may address the need for good strength and function of the pelvic floor as part of management of other conditions we may be treating, including low back pain, poor posture, weak abdominals, Rectus diastasis and poor core stabilization. 

Poor lifting techniques, weak abdominals, straining with exercise or with constipation and poor breathing patterns may also have an adverse effect on the pelvic floor structures and muscles and worsen pain or create organ prolapse and pelvic floor dysfunction.

Choosing the Proper Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy

We will choose the proper pelvic floor physical therapy based on your referral diagnosis, prior medical tests and treatments, symptoms and our examination.

Before we begin your individualized treatment program, we will first conduct a physical exam. This will include an external and where indicated an internal vaginal or rectal exam to assess tenderness, muscle tension and tone, tissue integrity and muscle strength, co-ordination and endurance. We will discuss with you the type of pelvic floor physical therapy we feel is best for you.

Most patients with weakness of the pelvic floor muscles will be prescribed strengthening exercises commonly called Kegel exercises. Some patients have tried these exercises in the past without success. We find many patients are performing them incorrectly or with insufficient repetitions or intensity or substituting other muscles without realizing it. We use Biofeedback via a specialized computer program and a sensor on the pelvic floor muscles to assess the muscle contraction. The patient can see this in real time on the computer screen and make adjustments as they contract their muscle. 

During each visit we will check your response to your last visit and your overall progress and make changes or progressions to your treatment plan. 

On average, pelvic floor physical therapy is performed twice a week initially then weekly over about six weeks. Pre-op prostatectomy patients will be seen two to four visits as needed. 

Each Initial Evaluation and Treatment lasts about one hour, while subsequent sessions may be 40-60 minutes. 

While most patients notice significant results from Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy, some patients may be referred back to their physicians for other medical or surgical interventions.