Our fortnightly Facebook Wellness Embodied live videos are back! We are going live on Facebook every fortnight on Thursdays at 1:00pm (Cairns time) Tune in on Facebook to watch us live!   Here is Clara our Cairns Complete Concussion Management Inc certified physiotherapist chatting about Post Concussion Syndrome characteristics and management.   If you or a loved one has sustained a concussion, it is best to book an appointment with us as soon as possible, at least within the 24 hour period following so we can get working on getting you back to work and play as soon as possible!

What a crazy week! We got authorisation from the government to stay open, as an essential Allied Health service and the Federal Health minister Greg Hunt reiterated this yesterday, stating that there is still a need for face to face visits and the Health Department will be releasing public information regarding the safety of Allied Health. For those of you who are part of our VIP group on Facebook, see more of the summary of this. Right now we’re happy to be assisting people with pain, stress relief and movement to get through both chronic and acute conditions. Pain and lack

Is there such a thing as perfect posture? Well, to be honest, no. Posture is defined as the arrangement of the body and its limbs, but it is also defined as a mental or spiritual attitude. And what does it mean? Well…it means that there is not a unique posture. We are constantly moving and changing the arrangement of our body. If you are sitting and working on the computer you will have a different posture than if you are standing giving a speech, or just standing waiting in a long queue. The phrase, ‘your best posture is your next

Our theme for this week is sprains and strains! Watch to hear our practice principal talk about the healing phases of injury, how we can help in our Rehab Room and why RICE is no longer the treatment form of choice! #wellnessembodiedcairns #cairnsphysio Questions? For further information or to book visit our website www.wellnessembodiedcairns.com or call 42319777  

Do you hold tension or stress in your body and want to know how to release this? Do you know how your breathing affects your emotional state and energy levels? Practice Principal Suzanne and Senior Physiotherapist Campbell have been working on developing 2 online courses based on their areas of expertise: Fascia, and the Respiratory System, respectively. These courses have been designed to give you the tools and know-how to develop a deeper connection with your body. Suzanne and Campbell know that developing a better understanding of these systems helps to promote body awareness, self-regulation, energy management and stress reduction.

Liam came in to see us with clicking and pain on the outside of his knee. He had been doing a lot of rowing at the gym and the knee seemed to be getting worse every time. On testing his knee was stable, had full range of movement and other than being tender to touch it was difficult to reproduce his symptoms. The ligaments and cartilage of the knee was fine with specific tests and he had good muscular strength in the quadriceps and hamstrings.  We decided to look further upstream and assessed his hip, where we found an obvious

What is pain? A complex, multifactorial input/output system that implies much more than just tissue health. Why do we get pain? Initially it is usually from damage to tissue and the inflammatory response. But if pain persists, we begin to see changes in the pathways between the tissue and the brain, and the nervous system gets involved. In an attempt to protect you from further damage, we feel pain to stop us doing something we shouldn’t.  The trouble is, less and less ‘threat’ or stimulus is needed before you feel pain. It is important to note that the pain you

We recently had a competitive swimmer through the doors of Wellness Embodied who was struggling with persistent shoulder pain. This patient had seen two other physiotherapists who treated her shoulder locally with mild improvement, but the pain kept coming back when she returned to swimming. On assessment we did find a local impingement at the shoulder, but as the patient reported other physios found and treated the shoulder we decided to look for the root cause. The shoulder is a complex joint with many moving parts and relies on part on good mobility through the neck and upper back. A

What is a muscle strain? In short, it is the overstretching or tearing of muscle fibres. The majority of muscle strains occur for one of two reasons: either the muscle has been stretched beyond its capacity or it has beena forced to contract too strongly. The severity of injury can range from only a few muscle fibres that are damaged, and the muscle continues to function, through to complete tears where the muscle may be unable to function.  How do I know if I have strained a muscle? Symptoms include: Pain and tenderness in the muscle, especially after physical activity

What is Bursitis you ask? Inflammation of the bursa.  Well… what is a bursa? A bursa is a small fluid filled sac that acts like a shock-absorber between soft tissue (muscles, tendons, ligaments) and bone. The role of the bursa is to reduce friction and assist optimal joint movement. So how does a bursa become inflamed? Overuse, impact, or poor biomechanics can cause irritation and inflammation of the bursa, causing it to fill with excess fluid. The bursa then becomes a source of pain, and can interrupt normal movement. This can lead to a vicious cycle of altered biomechanics causing

According to George Orwell, ‘Happiness can exist only in acceptance.’ This may seem an unusual sentiment from someone who wrote such dystopian books as 1984, but perhaps Orwell had acceptance mastered. Certainly, acceptance is an increasingly important tool in mind and body medicine.   In psychology, acceptance can be defined as our assent to the reality of our situation-whether positive or negative- without attempting to change the circumstances. In yoga, it can be summarized best by Aparigraha, meaning ‘non-attachment’. Aparigraha, one of the yamas from Patangali’s yoga sutras, teaches us that we should neither be attached to positive nor negative

Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) syndrome is a disorder of the jaw muscles and nerves caused by injury or inflammation to the temporomandibular joint.  The temporomandibular joint is what connects your skull to your jaw. Lots of the structures (muscles, vessels and nerves) that go to your head and face, are the same that the ones which go to your neck. Hence, any injury or disorder in those structures can cause referred pain to your Temporomandibular joint.  There are several risk factors for TMD:  -Poor posture in the neck and upper back muscles may lead to neck strain and abnormalities of jaw

We often put all our effort into training. Increasing distance, decreasing time, more intensity, faster splits. But how much effort are you putting into recovery? In fact, some research points to your ability to recover as just as important as your ability to train. If you don’t recover optimally, you are starting behind the 8 ball with your next training session. When we run / swim / walk / lift / exercise there is a response at the tissue level and at the system level. Micro-trauma to muscle tissue, buildup of waste products, decreased circulation, increased muscle tension, nervous system

This week is healthy hip week, and the focus is on hip dysplasia in children – a condition which affects approximately one in 50 babies yet isn’t particularly well known. This blog post gives a quick overview of the hip joint and the issues which we see in our Cairns city physiotherapy practice. ​The image above shows the bony structure of the hip, which is actually a very stable joint, as the ball (‘head of femur’) sits into a deep socket (‘acetabulum’). Within the joint is a cartilaginous cushion called the labrum. Important stabilising muscles of the hip include some

Earlier this year I attended an eight day Spinal Manual Therapy certificate course, run by Manual Concepts. Manual Concepts are well known and respected in the physiotherapy field due to the volume of research they put out and their role in changing the field of physiotherapy. They also run a manual therapy course which physiotherapists used to refer to as a ‘manips’ masters. (A manip or manipulation is a high velocity mobilisation of the joint, typically causing that ‘crack’). But perhaps we should change the name in our minds. As a skilled, patient specific treatment, when performed to its best

Ah, the nervous system… Essentially our body’s computer, it consists of the brain, spinal cord and a massive interconnecting system of nerves ranging in size from as thick as a finger to as thin as a piece of thread. They travel beside, to and through muscles, veins and arteries, bones, ligaments, organs, tendons, fascia and skin. Their role is to carry signals to and from the brain, which then decides how to respond to these signals. A simple way of illustrating this: if you put your hand on something hot, a bunch of sensory nerves communicates this to the brain;

Here are two exercises which can help to settle headache pain. Important note: Physiotherapy assessment is a specific, skilled process where we identify whether certain joints or muscles are contributing to your pain and treat these accordingly. While these exercises may help your headaches, they are not intended as a substitute for accurate diagnosis and treatment which we provide, or for medical attention as needed. At our Cairns city clinic, Wellness Embodied therapists use a wide variety of assessment and treatment techniques to diagnose and assist you. These include: Watson headache protocol for headaches and migraines, Craniosacral Therapy, Rehab Room,