There are so many thoughts and ideas running through my brain that it will be a true test for me to sit still long enough to articulate them. Fortunately my wife, blog, colleagues, and my upcoming podcasts will give me a nice steady discharge of this energy as opposed to blowing all at once!
The origin of my excitement is my experience at a recent contact session for my Sc.D. program at Texas Tech. The title of the course is "Motor Control in Orthopedics" and is basically part two of last semester's "Neuroscience in Orthopedics" course. The weekend began with a review of the motor control principles we independently studied over the last eight weeks. Information processing, attention and memory, peripheral and central contributions to movement, motor learning and practice...these were all reviewed and discussed with our course (and program) director Phil Sizer.
The second component of the course jumped over into practical application where we discussed issues pertaining to motor control and syndromes of the cervical and lumbar spines, shoulder, knee, and ankle. The vast majority of slides and resultant discussion stemmed from the peer-reviewed works of people like Hodges, O'Sullivan, Powers, Hewett, Falla, Jull, Flynn, Childs, and many MANY others. From this standpoint, the information presented was a good representation of the state of motor control as it pertains to our profession.
This information was juxtaposed with Phil's infectious passion for the material and synthesis. The result was the generation of great (raw...but great) ideas regarding management from my fellow classmates. I have to say from this perspective it was very inspirational. I will admit my threshold to excitation is a bit on the low end at times, so take that for what it's worth...
NOW. There were a few occasions on day two where I seemed to scratch my head. As positive as I am about the course, I have some questions/concerns about our integration of these topics. Predictably my concerns pertain to things like the relevance of feedforward TrA activation, hip weakness in anterior knee pain, etc...
- What is the relationship between lumbar muscle dysfunction and LBP? We know the relationships are there, but identification is not sufficient to place them in proper perspective. Despite our eagerness to dive into and "treat" these areas with various activity programs such as "core training", a stricter adherence to principles of motor control may cause us to rethink our current approaches. (more on this soon!)
- What are the relationships between hip muscle strength and anterior knee pain? We often see measurable decreases in hip capability in the presence of knee dysfunction. However this observational statement is only the beginning. Is this relationship causal or simply correlative? If it is causal, are we confident which came first? The answers have not been clearly defined and have profound implications for evaluation and management.
I believe the answers will become clearer as we begin to integrate clinical observations (weak hip abductors, functional instability, etc...) with our emerging understanding of neuroscience and motor control. Over the next several weeks, I hope to present examples and arguments in favor of integrating these fields of movement science and the evolution of understanding that they can bring. I am excited to share this with you and look forward to your questions and comments!
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Just have to let you know that I'm captivated by your blog.
ReplyDeleteRecently, I re-entered my physical therapy career, after years of stay-at-home-momhood, and have landed myself in an ortho outpatient setting. My background, masters, and passion, however, lie in motor control/learning. I love it that you are connecting these places - ortho and movement science. (Just picked up the Spark book, by the way, after following your link to that podcast.)
You're excitement is contagious.
Wanted to say thanks for that. : )