Is Your Ankle Bothering You?
Need Ankle Physical Therapy? Try Ankle Physical Therapy Services in Brooklyn with Evolve PT!
Ankle injuries can keep you down and out for a long time if untreated or treated incorrectly. The ankle is a complex joint, like the wrist, it’s made up of dozens of joints and over a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The ankle is a magnificent system, the duality of its responsibility is unmatched when compared to other joints. It has a need to be conforming and supple enough to contour to any uneven surface, as well as being rigid enough to be a springboard for running and jumping. Safe to say, there’s a lot going on here. Most ankle injuries boil down to where the stress is going, and often a part foot is working too hard. This strain can be as benign as inflammation, to tendinitis, or at the extreme tearing of the ligaments and bones. Let’s go two of the most common ankle injuries, including the mechanism of injury and treatment.
Ankle sprain-
The most common type of sprain happens when your foot rolls over itself. This generally happens with sports stepping on someone’s foot for example, but also can be from stepping wrong on an uneven surface or off a curb. This is called an inversion ankle sprain, dubbed by the direction the foot is moving. Depending on how much the ankle rolls, and often how much weight is going through your ankle in that position, will determine how bad the sprain is. Initially immobilizing your foot is important, as you’re susceptible to spraining it more. Common treatment after includes working on the muscles involved in the injury, strength, and balance training to recalibrate your ankle in positions where the ligaments will be active.
Plantar Fasciitis-
The plantar fascia serves as a support structure for your foot, it helps form your arch. It fans out from your heel to your toes. The area on your heel where it attaches can become inflamed, often with excessive weight or overuse typical in flat feet. In mild cases, a change in footwear and stretching are often enough. If the inflammation is bad enough, immobilization and reduction of activity are required. This injury can be a nag, but with proper assessment of your gait, arches, and exercise form, it can be well managed.
If you’re unlucky enough to break your ankle, thankfully most of the time they heal and recover like it never even happened. The two bones from your calf, tibia and fibula, are typically the area a fracture occurs. Treatment for the fracture can vary anywhere from a cast with immobilization, to surgical fixation keeping the fracture in place using screws and plates. Recovery depends on where the fracture occurred, and the technique to keep it in place. Typically, is starts off with a period of immobilization and reduction in weightbearing to allow things to heal. Once you’re able to start moving again, Physical Therapy is your best bet to regaining the normal motion and function of the foot. The time in a cast or boot, albeit brief, will typically result in atrophy of the supporting structures of the ankle. Proper range of motion and strength exercises will be paramount to the eventual function of the foot.
Ankle injures can be complicated, and proper assessment and treatment is key. Thankfully at Evolve PT, we’ve got you covered. From the latest in soft tissue techniques, to expert gait and running analysis, there is no reason your ankle injury has to keep you from doing the things you love.
Click here for more information about ankle physical therapy in Brooklyn
About EvolveNY-
NYC's Premier Holistic Physical Therapy Clinics-
There’s physical therapy, there’s training, and then there’s EVOLVE. We use the science of biomechanics merged with fitness to help our patients get better and stay better!
First we evaluate, then we heal, then we strengthen our clients so they can reach their goals, feel better, and live happier lives. We do so by utilizing a range of core techniques and specialized treatments to reduce pain, improve mobility, enhance physical strength and deal with the underlying issues, not just the pain itself.
Multiple Locations!
https://EvolveNY.com