Ankle injuries can be problematic. While a simple sprain may decrease in pain relatively quickly, the ankle is still weak for a while after and thus susceptible to further injury. Proper treatment and recovery is necessary to help prevent future injury and to ensure the patient is back to full fitness properly. This is particularly important for patients who do a lot of sport, basketball especially where frequent abrupt changes of direction play a significant role in the play.
So here at Back & Body in Springfield, we’ll take a look at what we do to help those patients with ankle sprains and what is done to get them back to fitness.
Evaluation & Treatment
If the sprain is significant (dubbed a grade III sprain) some kind of immobilization may be necessary as ligaments are given time to heal, but for grade II and grade I sprains, we want to see mobilization of the ankle occur very quickly. Studies show that the sooner mobilization is enacted, the better the rate of healing and stronger it will be. Studies have found that immobilization is not as good for the ankle.
So we will examine the ankle accordingly and ensure that there is no further problems and then treat it. We will adjust, manipulate and mobilize the ankle and then suggest exercises to help improve mobilization and reduce pain. These manual manipulations will help free up adhesions and scar tissue that may have formed around the injury and to restore function.
So this is the first step in the recovery. Assess and treat.
Prevention
The second step is to prevent future injury and to ensure the current injury clears up properly. Studies have shown that the most crucial aspect in this is to restore and encourage proper balance. So what this means is that we help the patient to walk normally as soon as possible after the injury. Improper walking places stress on other parts of the body and does not help to continue the mobilization efforts of treatment. So returning to proper posture and walking is extremely vital in the long term condition of the ankle.
Studies have backed this course of action for ankle injuries and we intend to always act on new data and new studies to ensure that our treatment is at the forefront of new discoveries. Evidence based therapy is central in everything we do at Back & Body Springfield as we aim to help our patients out of pain and back to the life they want.
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