Posted 11/01/2011
For those who know me, I have pictures of my nieces all over my office desk and home. I have several pictures of them in a full squat position playing with something on the floor….A full deep squat. Now imagine yourself sitting in a full squat position playing your favorite board game or card game with your family or friends. Many of us would fall backwards on our bottom instantly. As we grow up (in our country at least), we spend a lot of time sitting on chairs, benches, toilets, couches, and many of us lose our ability to fully squat. Other countries do spend a lot of time squatting, and their health is benefiting from it I am sure.
Squatting is a very important, and something that we as therapists at the Hruska Clinic are often evaluating (and trying to improve the ability to squat) with our patients. A full, deep squat (when done correctly) assists with: decreasing muscle tone in the back, improving normal hip and knee mechanics, and placing the pelvic floor muscles in position to allow for easier bowel and bladder elimination….just to name a few. When done incorrectly, it may cause the patient pain in the knees, back, hips, pelvic floor, etc.
So, can you squat? A full, deep squat keeping your heels down and knees in, without falling backwards or experiencing pain? If not, you may be a good candidate for Postural Restoration physical therapy.
Questions or comments for Jen? to send her an email!
Posted 03/31/2011
Why is an Eye Doctor Working in a Physical Therapy Clinic? Why do we need our eyes?
Most people’s answers to these questions would be: “My eyes help me see where I am going”, “My eyes tell me where things are around me” or “My eyes help me see small things far away”. All very true and all very important functions of your eyes.
That’s just the beginning. The proverbial ‘scratching of the surface’ of what your eyes do for you as a whole person is often overlooked. Your eyes are actually a part of your brain! The information collecting cells in your eyes are formed from your brain during your development as an embryo. These cells make up what we call the retina. Only 20% of the entire surface of the retina is used to see the bottom line on the eye chart at the doctor’s office. That means that a relatively small area of the retina is used for central vision, and the remaining 80% of the retina surface is used to collect and send information to other parts of the body for non-seeing functions. In addition, 20% of the fibers of the optic nerve, which carry all the information from the eye to the brain, don’t go to the visual cortex at all. Twenty percent of the approximately 1.2 million nerve fibers of each optic nerve are there to control things we take for granted every day like postural adjustment, balance, coordination etc.
This fact makes you wonder what things all the other hundreds of thousands of connections are for, doesn’t it? Where does that information go? What does that information do? Research tells us that information from our eyes goes to areas of the brain that control bodily functions, including but not limited to: posture, emotions, muscle tension, body temperature, memory and attention!
If you are reading this and you have knee pain, back pain, jaw pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, dizziness, headaches etc., and are looking for a solution, then you may have had a light bulb go off above your head when you realized what you just read. You might have thought, “Well, if information from my eyes has an effect on those areas of my brain, then maybe I need to check into this more because I am tired of not living life to it’s fullest due to pain and discomfort.” The more we learn about how input from our eyes affects our bodies, the more we get excited about changing the lives of lots of people. Every time we get feedback from our patients about how our use of this information is helping them, we get excited because these successful outcomes by an optometrist or a physical therapist have never been outlined or summarized through traditional treatments!
Dr. Heidi Wise, like Ron Hruska, has dedicated much of her career to asking the question “why”? Now that she has teamed up with Ron and the other therapists at the Hruska Clinic and Postural Restoration Institute, many of the answers are starting to make sense. We are discovering how eyes have an influence on the rest of the human body. People who have not had long term success with other methods of treating their physical health problems are finding life changing answers at the Hruska Clinic and the Postural Restoration Institute. We have had tremendous success in treating patients, including physical therapists and professional athletes, from all over the United States.
We call this method of treatment Integrative Optometry. What we are doing is ‘integrating’ (mixing together) small changes in what your eyes tell your brain, with PRI physical therapy concepts. This causes physical changes in muscle tension and muscle patterns. These physical changes lead to improved muscle and joint function, and a decrease in symptoms like pain. This is what Dr. Heidi Wise and the physical therapists are doing for Hruska patients, and why ‘there is an eye doctor working in a physical therapy office’. The more she and the therapists learn about the power of integrating visual input with physical therapy, the more patients are being helped. The research and treatments being developed are the first of their kind, and exclusive to the Hruska Clinic. No one else is treating with these methods or with this kind of success. That is very exciting to all of us and our growing list of patients.
If you need new glasses or contacts for driving, or someone to treat your eye infection, then you should visit your local optometrist. If you want answers to problems such as headaches and migraines; dizziness; back pain and tension; difficulties sleeping; jaw, head and neck tightness and pain; eyestrain or a number of other physical ailments, then call the Hruska Clinic and see if we can help. If you have tried traditional physical therapy or other traditional treatments with limited to no success, call and find out if Integrative Optometry might give you some answers . When you do, we believe you may find solutions to your problems, even if you have been told that solutions don’t exist.
Posted November 1, 2011 at 10:32am by Jennifer Gloystein.
