Acute Sports Injuries and Dry Needling

Sports Physiotherapy

Andrew has been an APA  Titled Sports Physiotherapist since prior to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and  has had extensive experience treating injuries associated with:
• individual swimmers and swimming squads, and elite, age group tri-athletes. This has involved not only treating acute injuries but treatment and screening for injury prevention and performance enhancement
• middle and long distance runners
• road cyclists and mountain bikers
• surfers,surf ski paddlers, dragonboat and outrigger canoe paddlers
• golfers

At Integrated Physiotherapy we use a movement focus rather than a pain focus in his approach to treatment and retraining, working to identify and restore efficient movement patterns that have led to injury and training awareness and integratiion of new or restored movement patterns in order to prevent reoccurrence. Andrew has been integrating traditional acupuncture and dry needling in a physiotherapy environment to treating sports injuries at all levels and, neck and back pain since the early 1990’s which has provided him with a great tool to stimulate  tissue and physiological change. How long or how well changes are maintained depends on how well new movement or postural strategies are maintained, which is where the coaching and learning of efficient functional movements is important.  Video and digital postural assessment are some of the tools used in this phase of treatment.

Dry needling

The specific approach to dry needling used  at Integrated Physiotherapy is Integrated Dryneedling, an approach developed and taught by Andrew and presented to over 2000 of his peers around Australasia in courses and at national physiotherapy conferences since 1996.

This unique dry needling approach is an amazing tool in the treatment of acute sporting and soft tissue injuries as it is able to quickly down regulate irritated tissues and modulate inflammatory processes, reducing pain  and  and promoting optimal tissue physiology for healing.

Combined with the load management strategies (specific taping techniques, activity modification ) and manual therapy offered at Integrated Physiotherapy you can be assured your healing will be as quick as possible allowing you back to the sport or activity you love at your best.

Integrated DryneedlingThere has been growing interest in the Australian physiotherapy community  and in the general community in ‘dry needling’ (the use of needles in a western physiological paradigm). Physiotherapists have come to recognise the advantages skilful use of needling has in complementing manual techniques, not the least of these being a reduction in post treatment soreness experienced by the patient

Some of the effects of needling are:
•the stimulation of structural change in the collagen matrix
•alteration in the neural activity in the peripheral and central nervous systems
•local tissue changes such as improved circulation, inflammation regulation and stimulation of tissue repair