Thursday 8:30-1130:

 

Today Hunter and I met with Diane in Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy at 8:30 AM. When I first arrived there was already a patient there receiving treatment. She was doing muscle stimulations and when that was done she moved on to some stretching. After that patient had left we all sat down to talk about the research we had done the previous day. Diane asked us to name all the ligaments and explain what the purpose of each one was. We also talked about the quads and how they attach on the anterior and distal part of the knee on the Tibial tuberosity. The Hamstrings are commonly confused as being one muscle but in fact are three different muscles; the Bicep Femoris muscle, Semitendinosus muscle, and the Semimembranosus muscle and they come around and attach on the lateral (outside) and medial (inside) sides of the knee. After we pretty much grasped a good concept on the knee joint we decided on what our next joint would be—the shoulder. This joint is a lot more complicated and will be fun to study and see how it all comes together to work. Our next patient arrived and her name was Barbara. She has arthritis in her right knee and is unable to extend her leg completely. We started off going over different stretches to help strengthen her hip, and quadriceps because most knee issues are typically related to something concerning the hip or muscle imbalance in the quadriceps which in some cases cause the patella to be pulled in one direction and track differently causing pain. Next we set her up for some Stim. to remove some of the swelling that was going on as well as putting some weight on the knee to help with the extension. Shortly after that Diane had to take care of some paper work, and Hunter was probably getting on her nerves so she sent us off to lunch!