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Superior Physical Therapy Blog

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Learn about common pain-causing health conditions, their progression paths, their causes, and effective treatment options. Our blog offers valuable information to people who experience pain and anyone who wishes to learn more about long-lasting, safe, and noninvasive treatments.

These articles also explain how Superior Physical Therapy addresses these common health problems through an innovative approach called the Superior Method. This approach aims to accurately identify the underlying cause of pain in order to develop a more tailored and collaborative treatment plan.

Your Deductible Is Met. Here Is the Smartest Way to Use It Before December 31.

You had the knee thing in March. Or the shoulder. Or a surgery, or a hospital stay, or a run of appointments that added up faster than you expected. Whatever it was, you have already spent your way past the...

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Walking Is Not Rehab

More walking will not rebuild hip strength after hip replacement. Research tracked an abductor deficit that starts before surgery and lingers for years.

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One in Five Hip Replacement Patients Gets New Back Pain

New back pain after hip replacement is common enough that researchers measured it. One in five patients with no prior back pain had it within a year.

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The One Question to Ask Before You Agree to a Hip Replacement

There is one question worth more than all the other questions to ask before hip replacement, and an orthopedic surgeon in Australia is the reason I ask it.

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What Actually Happens in a 20-Minute Movement Screen

What a free movement assessment Traverse City patients get actually looks like, minute by minute, so the unknown stops being the reason you never call.

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Your Groin Hurts and So Does Your Back. They Are Related.

Hip and back pain together is not a coincidence. Half of patients heading for hip replacement already have back pain, and most of it clears after surgery.

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Four Hip Self-Tests You Can Do at Home This Afternoon

Four hip self-test at home checks you can run this afternoon with a kitchen chair and a bed. What a poor score suggests, and what it does not prove.

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Bone on Bone Does Not Mean What You Think It Means

Told you are bone on bone hip and stopped moving because of it? Two large studies found hip pain and hip x-rays agree far less often than anyone assumes.

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The Two Years You Might Be Giving Away

A Norwegian trial followed 109 people for six years. Hip arthritis exercise pushed the median time to a hip replacement out by nearly two years.

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Your Hip Replacement Is Scheduled. Here Is What to Do With the Next Six Weeks

Your surgery date is set. Prehab before hip replacement is the six weeks most people waste, and the research on strength and recovery says don't.

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Single-Leg Balance: The Most Overlooked Key to Full Recovery After Hip Replacement

Roughly 40 percent of every walking cycle is spent balanced on one leg. If your single-leg stability isn't there after hip replacement, nothing feels safe — regardless of your range of motion.

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Scar Tissue After Hip Replacement: The Invisible Barrier — and the 6-to-12 Week Window

Scar tissue forms in every hip replacement. Whether it restricts your recovery depends almost entirely on whether it's addressed during the 6-to-12 week remodeling window — and most PT programs miss it.

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BMJ: Guideline Strongly Recommends Against Arthroscopy for 'Nearly All' Patients With Knee OA or Meniscal Tears

In countries with data available, knee arthroscopy is the most common orthopedic procedure Data reviewed by an international multidisciplinary panel that included physical therapists Guideline makes a "strong recommendation" against the use of arthroscopy in nearly all patients with degenerative...

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CDC: Arthritis Affects 1 in 4 in US; More Emphasis on Physical Activity Needed

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) latest snapshot of arthritis prevalence, severity, and related physical inactivity reported in 2017 looks a lot like its previous one, based on 2015 data. As then, an estimated 1 in 4...

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New Clinical Practice Guideline for Shoulder Pain Makes the Case Against Surgery

Should patients experiencing chronic, atraumatic shoulder pain for three or more months undergo surgery? A new paper recently published in the BMJ advises strongly against it. The paper’s authors summarized their evidence-based recommendations into a new Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG),...

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Subacromial decompression surgery for adults with shoulder pain: a systematic review with meta- analysis

To determine the benefits and harms of subacromial decompression surgery in adult patients with subacromial pain syndrome lasting for more than 3months. Download PDF File

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Prevalence of knee osteoarthritis features on magnetic resonance imaging in asymptomatic uninjured adults

Knee MRI is increasingly used to inform clinical management. Features associated with osteoarthritis are often present in asymptomatic uninjured knees; however, the estimated prevalence varies substantially between studies. We performed a systematic review with meta-analysis to provide summary estimates of...

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FDA Warns About Dangers of Epidural Steroid Injections for Back Pain

The Food and Drug Administration has just issued what’s called a “Medwatch Alert” warning that Epidural steroid injections or “ESIs” for back and neck pain can be extremely dangerous. The alert says: “Injection of corticosteroids into the epidural space of...

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Many Orthopedic Surgeries Don’t Work

Unlike drugs, orthopedic surgeries can be sold to the public before they undergo any rigorous testing to ensure they are safe and effective. Thus, millions of surgeries for knee, shoulder, and back pain have been done even without any research...

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MRI and X-Ray Often Worse than Useless for Back Pain

When it comes to diagnosing most back pain, MRI machines are like Monty Python’s medical machinery that goes “bing.” For back pain, MRI and X-ray are medical machines that make false alarms. They don’t always make false alarms, of course....

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Stop and Think Carefully about Back Surgery

If you’re considering having spinal surgery as the final fix for your back pain, I’d like to help you to think again about your options.I’m a spinal surgeon and I want you to know that surgery is not your best...

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JAMA opinion piece slams our addiction to ‘unnecessary’ MRIs, CT scans

When the Food and Drug Administration approved magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners in 1984, the machines seemed incredible. They offered an inside view of the human body, making it easier to diagnose disease, injuries and physical abnormalities. Today, they’re part...

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57% of People with No Pain show Knee Osteoarthritis on an Image

The purpose of this study was to prospectively evaluate the prevalence of abnormal magnetic resonance imaging scans of the knees of asymptomatic subjects. A prospective analysis of magnetic resonance imaging to arthroscopic findings in symptomatic knees was also performed. Download...

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The Dramatic Increase in Total Knee Replacement Utilization Rates in the United States Cannot Be Fully Explained by Growth in Population Size and the Obesity Epidemic

Total knee replacement utilization in the United States more than doubled from 1999 to 2008. Althoughthe reasons for this increase have not been examined rigorously, some have attributed the increase to population growth and the obesity epidemic. Our goal was...

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