Treating Acute Injuries
We’ve all been there. One moment you’re perfectly fine and then the next….BOOM! Something in your body doesn’t feel right. Maybe you tripped and fell while running, maybe you collided with another player while playing ultimate frisbee, maybe you were at work and twisted around suddenly when someone called your name. Whatever happened, you suffered what is called an acute injury.
What Are Acute Injuries?
An acute injury (often called sports injury) is trauma to your musculoskeletal system. In other words, when you hurt or otherwise damage your bones, muscles, and the soft tissues that hold everything together (ligaments, cartilage, tendons, etc). These usually happen suddenly from actions like falling, twisting, jumping, throwing, and running.
Don’t confuse acute injuries with chronic injuries. Acute injuries happen suddenly, while chronic injuries develop over time as a certain part of the body gathers strain from repetitive overuse.
Here are some common acute injuries:
- Broken bones
- Dislocations
- Shin splints
- Sprains
- Bursitis
- Torn ligaments
- Muscle pulls
What Helps Provide the Best Recovery?
Often, less-serious acute injuries can be treated with the RICE method:
Rest
Ice
Compression
Elevation
These actions work together to reduce swelling and inflammation so you can heal. However, the process can be slow, painful, and frustrating--especially if it's keeping you from returning to work or participating in your favorite sports.
How Can An Accident and Injury Chiropractor Help Acute Injuries?
Here at Accelerate Health, our mission is to get you back to the activities you love faster. That’s why we offer many therapeutic services that can help speed up your recovery and quickly help you reduce swelling, inflammation, bruising, and pain.
Let’s use an example of an ankle sprain. If you fell and twisted your ankle while playing soccer, you’d likely want to get past the painful swelling and bruising as soon as possible, so you could get back out on the field. Here’s what your care would look like if you came into one of our Denver offices.
Diagnosis
After initial evaluation and examination of your ankle, we would give you a diagnosis of an inversion ankle sprain (your ankle was injured by rolling inward) and begin treatment immediately.
Phase 1: Acute
In the acute phase, reducing swelling, inflammation, and pain would be the primary focus.
To help you increase your range of motion, we would begin with light soft tissue mobility work around the damaged ligament to bring in new blood flow and to push inflammatory fluid out of the area. We would start with the Graston Technique, using special stainless steel tools to stretch and rearrange your soft tissue to increase blood flow and promote the healing process.
Next, we would use cold laser therapy. Our class IV cold laser penetrates deep into the tissue and creates a chemical reaction within the cell. As a result the cell is stimulated to create more ATP. Why is this important? ATP is used as energy in the body, so more ATP will increase the amount of energy our body can use to heal. We’ve seen cold laser therapy significantly reduce bruising almost immediately.
Finally, we would perform kinesiotaping around your ankle to reduce pain and swelling. Our doctors love to use RockTape--an advanced kinesiotaping system that stabilizes your injury while still leaving range of motion and space for your blood to flow freely.
This acute phase would last 3-4 visits or roughly 2-3 weeks. We’d also give you exercises to do at home to promote your healing. (One of our favorites is writing the ABCs with your ankle!)
Phase 2: Subacute
Once you are out of the acute phase, you would enter the subacute phase. This phase of care would be focused on function and helping you to fully bear weight on your injured ankle. To do this, we’d draw upon lots of different techniques and tools, customizing your treatment to what your body would benefit most from.
Here’s some of the techniques we might use:
Graston Method: manipulating the muscle and connective tissue with specialized tools to increase bloodflow, reduce scar tissue, and increase mobility
Active Release Technique: a series of muscle movements and releases to increase mobility and reduce pain.
Voodoo Flossing: wrapping and releasing injured areas to promote blood flow and healing
Cupping: creating a vacuum over the injured area with special silicone cups to help with pain, inflammation, and blow flow
Dry Needling: inserting thin, monofilament needles into trigger points around the injury to reduce pain and increase range of motion.
A combination of these techniques is the gold standard of care. At this point we would be addressing the musculature surrounding the injured ligament to help provide better support and stability to the ligament. During this phase you would have new exercises to work on at home to help further increase the stability of your ankle.
Phase 3: Prevention
After you fully heal from your ankle sprain, you would, of course, want to prevent it from happening again. That’s why we work to educate you after your recovery on the best way to protect yourself from further injury.
In addition to teaching you safer ways to move, stretch, and warm up, we also encourage you to keep visiting our office to ensure you stay in tip-top shape.
In conclusion
Acute injuries are never fun, but here at Accelerate Health, we’re committed to helping you recover quickly with proven, non-invasive treatments that will get back to doing what you love. If you’re struggling with an injury--old or new--make an appointment today and get back on the path to health and happiness.
When Do Babies Start to Crawl? What You Need to Know
One of the main jobs of a pediatric chiropractor is to ensure your child’s motor development and function are working as optimally as possible. With this in mind, your child’s chiropractor assesses your child to ensure they are reaching each and every physical milestone. One of the main milestones that some babies might try to avoid is crawling. So, when do babies start to crawl?
6 Month Milestones
Ideally, at around 6 months, your baby will be able to lift themselves onto all fours and rock back and forth in this position. This skill then leads to the baby propelling themselves forward and crawling on hands and knees at around 9 months. However, for some babies, these skills are more difficult to achieve which might lead them to try and avoid crawling and move directly into standing and walking.
The Benefits of Crawling Are Numerous
For starters, crawling is one of the few movements your child will perform that increases the strength of the wrists and shoulders. While your baby is on hands and knees, the weight they are distributing through their shoulders, wrists, and hands is helping to develop shoulder and wrist stability. In the future, you will see strength in these areas help increase grip strength, ability to use utensils, ability to catch and throw a ball, and so on.
Important Skills that Develop from the Crawling Stage
Another important skill that is developed and strengthened during crawling is hand-eye coordination and general body coordination and awareness. This is beneficial when it comes to activities such as running, riding a bike, skipping, and even getting dressed. Because crawling requires both sides of the brain to work together, crawling can be a key player in both mental and physical development. Other benefits of crawling include strengthening the core, low back, and hips as well as improving visual convergence which is the ability to use both eyes together.
Most babies begin crawling between 6 and 10 months old, though every child works on their own unique timetable. You’ll be able to tell they’re getting ready to crawl when you see them:
- Rolling over from back to front
- Grabbing their feet when lying down
- Getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth
- Arching their neck to look around
- Pushing themselves backward
- Pulling back and then springing forward when on all fours
Once you see these behaviors, you can encourage them to continue moving by holding an interesting object just out of reach, showing them a favorite toy that is hidden behind a blanket or a pillow, or even just praising and encouraging them to come to you.
Remember That Babies Learn at Their Own Pace
Don’t be discouraged if they don’t crawl right away. You want them to be excited and motivated about crawling, so if they become frustrated or upset, quickly move on and come back to it another day. Don’t forget that it’s also important to baby-proof your home as they become more mobile. Pay attention to what’s on the floor, what they can reach and put into their mouth, or any falling hazards. You should always supervise your baby as they crawl and move around to make sure they’re out of harm’s way.
If Your Child Skips Crawling and Goes Straight to Walking, Don’t Worry
While some children have issues with coordination if they miss the crawling phase, plenty of children who went straight to walking without crawling grow up to be very active, fully functioning happy kiddos who can run and skip and ride their bikes without issue. But when the benefits of crawling are considered, it makes sense that this phase of development is important and should not be missed when possible.
If by 10 months, your child can pull up to a standing position, “cruise” around the room by grabbing onto the walls or furniture for assistance, or can otherwise move around on their bottom or tummy, their development is considered normal. Otherwise, there might be physical conditions standing in their way such as:
- Torticollis
- Tight hips
- Weakness in the shoulders or core
- Tight trunk or lower back
- Retained newborn reflexes
If that’s the case for your baby, we can help! Our pediatric chiropractors at Accelerate Health are able to address these concerns and assist you and your baby in their ability to crawl before they walk.
Our chiropractors can help treat tension in the low back and hips and stiffness in the mid back and neck. This ensures your baby is free of physical barriers that might be making it difficult for them to crawl. There are also several exercises that we can teach you to work on with your baby to help them feel strong and encourage them to propel themselves into crawling.
Does it Help? You Bet!
Here’s what one of our clients, Leah Brite, said:
“I feel lucky to have found Dr. Perkins at Accelerate Health as she helped get our 10-month-old crawling! At 9 months, he was showing no interest in crawling and would immediately move out of being on all 4s if you put him in that position.
Dr. Perkins did an assessment, gave us a series of stretches and exercises to do with him at home each day, and after a short 3 weeks, he was crawling! I am confident we would not have gotten there anywhere near that timeline without her help. We'd been trying for months to encourage him to start to crawl with no success.”
If you’re concerned about your baby’s ability to crawl, make an appointment today. We’re here to help your young ones move freely without restriction and develop to their fullest potential.
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