Knee tendinopathy, either in the quadriceps or patellar tendon, is a common source of knee pain among jumping athletes, but can occur in non jumping athletes or the general population as well. This overuse injury is caused by repetitive sub maximal loading of the knee through a bending range of motion. If the loading is...
Lateral elbow pain, tennis elbow, is a limiting condition causing pain with repetitive movements including gripping. This condition was previously though to occur secondary to inflammation within the wrist and fingers tendons insertion into the arm, but current researchers have not found inflammatory cells in patients with this condition. Instead, cells of the injured tendons...
Photo Credit: Scott, A. CMAJ. 2011. Mead, M. Transl Sports Med. 2018. Tendon injuries have previously been diagnosed as tendonitis and were believed to be marked by an inflammatory process in the tissue. Our current knowledge on these injuries has been improved by a better understanding of the disease process behind tendon pain. Current research...
Overuse injuries to the upper and lower extremity tendons remains a common source of pain and lost activity for patients at our Boulder Physical Therapy practice. Tendon injuries can be challenging to treat, but these injuries have been shown to respond to exercise interventions designed to appropriately load and promote healing (remodeling) of the...
Shoulder pain remains one of the most frequent reasons patients seek care from a Physical Therapist. Although many diagnoses create symptoms in the shoulder region, rotator cuff tendon pain is one of the most common. Descriptions of tendon pain such as tendinitis are being disproven by the research due to a lack of inflammatory process...
The use of platelet rich plasma (PRP) and stem cell injections continue to rise and outpace the medical research supporting their use. Often these expensive injections are not covered by medical insurance due in part to their unproven effectiveness in human trials against placebo or control/natural history groups. A recent review article in the...