A JOINT IS A JOINT IS A JOINT…

Welcome everyone to the next episode of the Redefining Physical Therapy podcast.

I’m your host, Dr. Scott Gray. Today I wanted to kind of just talking about joints.

What I’m saying is a joint, is a joint, is a joint.

So whether it be young clinicians, senior clinicians, we get nervous when we’re maybe working on the spine or where a joint maybe a little bit more looser.

We’re unsure about it. In all reality, any joint is a joint is a joint, so it’s not going to change really the way that you treat it.

In the other podcasts, I’ve talked about how the joint rules, right? We have a saying about that.

So if a joint isn’t moving or is moving abnormally that’s going to give off a bunch of efferent information and efferent outputs, so it’s going to change the way the muscles fire.

It’s going to change the neuromuscular control patterns and movements, so you have to treat the joint first, because without joint mobility how can you have adequate soft tissue mobility?

How can you recruit the right muscles, everything? So you have to really be able to assess a joint.

In this, I want to just leave that a joint is a joint is a joint. So whether you’re in the spine working on a joint, trying to get it to move, trying to get those facet joints to move, you might be trying to get the vertebral body joint with the disc… That’s still a joint, right?

That doesn’t change. Whether I’m working with the knee, right, and I’m trying to get that joint moving adequately, the AC joint, the subtalar joint, the big toe, nothing is going to change.

You just need to know though what you’re trying to accomplish. You need to understand what that loose pack position is potential, what you’re trying to facilitate, what type of grade you’re trying to do, how long are you going to hold that grade, et cetera, et cetera.

This one is a little bit of a simple and sweet podcast, but don’t be afraid of joints in the spine, the neck, the pelvis, you name it because at the end of the day a joint is a joint is a joint.

The only thing that changes, with the spine, for instance, is just obviously you’ve got some more compromised structures, but you’re not going to injure that the chances are, right?

I mean if you think about the human body and what it can withstand… Just turn on NFL Sunday and you’ll see your little passive joint mobilities, how they compare to the forces on the spine when guys are playing football.

So I hope that helps. I hope that clarifies things, and remember a joint is a joint is a joint.