A physiotherapist can help you overcome many physical problems or at least ease the pain a little. At the East Perth Medical Centre, we have a qualified and very experienced physiotherapist in Dianne Mavor. Dianne can help you address your mobility problems which may be a result of illness, injury, or age.

Physiotherapy treatment is available for numerous problems including:

• back pain
• neck pain
• joint pain
• headaches
• stress
• incontinence
• sporting injuries
• motor vehicle injuries
• repetitive strain injuries
• workers’ compensation injuries

Treatment may involve:

• massage
• therapeutic exercises
• pilates
• gym programs
• pool programs

Prevention is always better than the cure which is why we recommend work place assessments to ensure staff are using correct work techniques and correct posture to avoid injuries. Many sporting injuries can also be prevented if the advice of a physio is followed.

The primary purpose of seeing a physiotherapist is to receive treatment for mobility problems. The first step in this process is to get the correct diagnoses of your condition and needs. Your doctor or a physio can diagnose your condition or advise on treating your existing condtion. Conditions such as arthritis can be debilitating but regular physiotherapy sessions can help relieve the pain. Other serious conditions can also be treated by a physiotherapist such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and stroke. If you have any of these conditions, speak to your doctor about whether treatment by a physiotherapist can help you or make an appointment directly with a physio.

This article has more information on physiotherapy and what is involved with the treatment or make an appointment with our physiotherapist for an assessment of your needs.

Physiotherapists focus on removing or reducing physical pain and restoring movement without the use of drugs. The Australian Physiotherapy Association defines physiotherapy as a therapeutic health profession concerned with enhancing mobility and quality of life by using clinical reasoning to deliver the most suitable treatment for an injury or condition. Physiotherapists help people gain as much movement and physical independence as possible so they can resume their normal job or lifestyle. Physiotherapists assess, diagnose and treat people with movement problems. They also deliver patient education and help people avoid injuries and maintain a fit, healthy body.

Physiotherapy is provided to a wide variety of people for a wide variety of reasons. People most in need of physiotherapy are the elderly, who may be suffering from conditions such as arthritis, people who have an injury which has resulted in restricted physical movement, and people suffering from certain health problems such as cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, and headaches. Physiotherapists can also provide information on how to prevent injuries.

Who Can Benefit From Physiotherapy?

People who may require physiotherapy include those who are:

• elderly
• ill
• injured
• sports people
• recovering from surgery
• recovering from child birth

Those who can benefit the most from physiotherapy treatment include those suffering from:

• muscular pain (such as neck and back pain)
• joint pain
• spinal conditions
• muscular control problems
• headaches
• stress
• sports injuries

Conditions Treated with Physiotherapy

Physical therapy can be used on its own to treat certain conditions but it is often used to complement other treatments. Diseases or conditions which may benefit from physiotherapy include:

• arthritis
• cerebral palsy
• spina bifida
• multiple sclerosis
• Parkinson’s disease
• stroke
• heart conditions
• lung conditions
• neurological conditions

What Does Physiotherapy Involve?

Depending on the problem or condition, physiotherapy may involve:

• exercises and stretches
• joint manipulation
• soft tissue massage
• breathing exercises
• ultrasound
• the use of hot packs or cold packs

Your physiotherapist can discuss possible treatments which may be appropriate for you.

At the East Perth Medical Centre, we take pride in the quality of our medical team and the services they provide. Here are the core members of the team.

Dianne Mavor - Physiotherapist

Dr Shanti Sakarapani

Dr Vlodek Zawadzki

Receptionist - Iris Parfitt

Almost all popular diets work in the short term simply because dieters are eating fewer calories. The problem with these fad diets is that they are almost impossible to stick to in the long term so as soon as you go off the diet you’ll most likely gain the weight you lost.

The key to long term weight loss is to make permanent changes to your eating habits and lifestyle. This doesn’t mean to say that all diets are without merit. For example, adding small, lean servings of protein to your diet can help reduce hunger, leading to the consumption of fewer calories. This is one of the benefits of the Atkins diet as reported in a recent study:

Arne Astrup at the University of Copenhagen also suspects the advantage of Atkins may simply be fewer calories, not a changed metabolism. This is because eating more protein fills you up more per calorie, so you eat less.

The study also showed that dieters on the Atkins diet lost more weight than those on other popular diets:

Christopher Gardner and colleagues at Stanford University in California, US, put 311 overweight women between 20 and 50 years old on either Atkins, or one of three other popular diets:

• Zone, which cuts carbs less severely than Atkins
• LEARN, a low-fat, high-carb diet based on US national guidelines
• Ornish, an extreme low-fat plan

After a year, all the women had lost some weight. The Atkins group lost more on average than the groups on all other diets.

One of the largest studies to date has found that overweight women lost a little more weight on the popular Atkins diet than on three other well-known diet plans. However, the effect was small.

Again, the problem is sticking with such a restrictive diet in the long term as well as the potential health problems of eating such a diet in the long term. The same study mentioned the concern of a high fat diet on cholesterol levels:

There are fears that the increased fat consumed with the Atkins diet could lead to cardiovascular problems. In this study, however, the Atkins group had the best “good” cholesterol, blood triglycerides (fat), and blood pressure. “Apparently the predicted adverse effect of more saturated fat in the diet is counterbalanced by losing even just slightly more weight,” Gardner told New Scientist.

It’s important to find what diet plan works best for you and one way to do that is to take the best parts of popular diets to make a personalised plan suitable for you and your family. For example, you might want to choose a diet with moderate levels of protein yet fairly low in fat also. Your doctor or dietician can help you with this to be sure you are getting a balanced diet as well as monitoring your progress.

The benefits of eating garlic have been discussed for many years. There is some scientific evidence to suggest that eating garlic is good for you as well as a significant amount of anecdotal evidence. The suggested health benefits of garlic include:

• helps prevent the common cold
• helps to treat the common cold
• helps regulate blood sugar levels
• may prevent some complications with diabetes
• cancer fighting properties
• antiseptic qualities
• effective in healing wounds and infections
• useful in treating intestinal worms and parasites

New evidence suggests the benefits of garlic are reduced when the garlic is cooked before eating. However, the negative impact of cooking can be reduced if the garlic is crushed before using:

Claudio R. Galmarini and colleagues in Argentina and the United States are reporting new evidence that crushing garlic before cooking can reduce the loss of garlic’s healthful properties.

The researchers found that even a few minutes of cooking reduces levels of those compounds. The reduction is steepest in whole garlic, and less pronounced in garlic that has been crushed before cooking. Crushing or chopping garlic releases an enzyme, alliinase, that catalyzes the formation of allicin, which then breaks down to form a variety of healthful organosulfur compounds.

It is uncertain whether or not taking garlic supplements results in the same health benefits. You can easily increase your intake of garlic by making slight changes to your diet so supplements are generally unnecessary anyway. For example, adding an extra couple of cloves of garlic to your cooked meals (such as casseroles, stir fries, curries), adding crushed garlic to salad dressings or making popular dishes such as tzatziki, will all increase your garlic intake.. This is far healthier than taking supplements and will have the added benefit of unknown vitamins and minerals.