Exciting news at Spectra Health,
your local rehabilitation and wellness centre
Welcoming back Christopher Mainella, RPT both on Denman Island and Hornby:
After a few years away, Christopher Mainella, a Registered Physiotherapist (RPT), is returning to Denman Island and joining the team. He will be providing Physiotherapy on Denman Island every Tuesday and Hornby Island every Thursday beginning mid September. This greatly increases Spectra Health’s capacity to serve you during your rehabilitation needs and will significantly cut down on wait times for assessment and follow up.
No more waiting for physio! Pass it on!
Christopher studied Physiotherapy at McGill University and graduated in 2007. Since then he has worked in private practices, with sports teams, with community based homecare organizations and was the head Physiotherapist on Haida Gwaii; managing outpatient clinics, inpatient care and long term care clientele. From 2021-2023 he worked as a Physiotherapist on Denman Island and Hornby Island and also at Parksville Physiotherapy Clinic. He was most currently working as a Physiotherapist in Switzerland, and has now returned to Canada, to live on Denman Island. We are very fortunate to have Christopher join our team, he brings over a decade of experience leading with patient centred care. Christopher’s approach is holistic in nature and uses a variety of approaches and techniques including: Active rehabilitation and therapeutic exercises, Myofascial release, Manual therapy, Mulligan’s mobilization with movement, McKenzie approach, Cranio-sacral release, vestibular rehabilitation, lymphatic drainage, trigger point releases, and Acupressure.
Osteopathic Practitioner Rebecca Halls, DOMP on Denman Island
Some of you may have already met Rebecca Halls, the Osteopathic Practitioner that joined me at Spectra Health late in the fall of last year. She completed the 5 year Diploma in Osteopathic Manual Practice (DOMP) at the Canadian School of Osteopathy in Vancouver. Rebecca currently practices Osteopathy on Denman Island one Friday per month as well as in Cumberland in her own clinic Unfolding Body. Osteopathy provides many benefits including: pain relief, increased range of motion, increased circulation, trauma healing, decreased stress and tension as well as postural correction. Osteopathy can also be a wonderful complement to a woman’s prenatal and postpartum journey. Not only can an Osteopathic Practitioner help ease tension from the changing body as it grows to accommodate the growing foetus, Rebecca can help you to prepare for birth, and help to restore lines of gravity and rebalance pressures in the postpartum period. With excellent scar techniques, Osteopathy can also help after a c-section. In addition to supporting mothers and birthing parents, Osteopathy is a valuable resource for babies.
Core and Pelvic stability
what does it mean and why is it so important
For those of you who have had the chance to take advantage of Spectra Health and the rehabilitation services we now have on Denman and Hornby, it is very likely you’ve heard me talk about the importance of core stability and the stability through the pelvis. This is a very big topic, but given that it is such a common issue I thought it would be useful to introduce it and give some to context to it’s importance.
Walking on two legs, quite a feet
As bipeds it’s easy to take for granted how much needs to occur for us to transfer load with every step, with every reach, with every item we cary or lift, and basically any movement we make.
Our centre of gravity will land between our feet at the midline. Our pelvis is the lever running horizontally connecting our two legs to our trunk. When transferring weight to one leg many muscles need to work in harmony to keep the horizontal lever level and parallel to the ground, to keep the plum line through the femur knee ankle and foot evenly.
If you pinch one end of a pen between your fingers, add pressure downward and upward and see what happens to the free end of the pen: it drops or lifts. It requires specific pressure to keep the pen parallel to the ground when held only by one extremity.
This is a very similar dynamic to our pelvis. However we don’t only need to lift one leg up, we also need to propel ourselves forward, transfer weight from foot to foot, hold the pelvis steady while reaching for objects etc… So there are muscles all the way around the head of our femur (the thigh bone) connecting to the pelvis at different angles to be able to do just that. They work with multiple abdominal muscles that can provide stability to the pelvis from above. The abdominal muscles will also stabilize the lower back as movements are occurring through the lower limbs and pelvis.
And this is the simple version! There’s a lot going on! I haven’t even gotten to rotation yet. But lets keep it simple for now.
So, we’re on two feet, we have a pelvis running parallel to the ground and muscles balancing this lever to help keep our centre of gravity in the middle where it needs to be to keep the load occurring in the joints, right in the middle.
However if you take a moment to look at yourself in the mirror you will likely notice we are rarely symmetrical. Over the years we develop a “strong side”, habits in standing and sitting, where we lean or twist to one side. Jobs that require unilateral tasks (tasks repeatedly on one side), carrying children, writing, driving, most tasks are rarely dividing load equally in both extremities. Therefore certain muscles get strong, others get weak, some lengthen, some shorten. All of a sudden that pen you were holding parallel to the ground by one extremity, is no longer parallel. The pelvis drops, twists, hikes up, rotates. Our amazing bodies find ways to compensate, pull a little here, push a little there by contracting certain muscles in an attempt to keep us on our feet.
But over time what this begins to look like clinically is that weight is no longer evenly distributed landing directly between the feet at an equal distance with a nice level pelvis. If it’s not level then there is, inevitably, a portion of a joint, or many joints carrying more load, more load means
prone to wear and tear, and ultimately, a more vulnerable joint altogether. Perhaps your back begins to twist, perhaps your femur roles inward which means part of your knee is carrying much more weight, perhaps your arch collapses in your foot. So you may come to me with shoulder pain and foot pain, but it turns out for years it was perfect storm slowly building leading to pain far away from the origin of the problem.
Before your eyes glaze over, overwhelmed by too much information, lets go over one simple step. Look down at your body right now. How are you sitting? Are you leaning to one side? Are you crossing your legs? Are your shoulders up around your ears? Just observe, do some areas feel tight? Do some areas feel soggy, boggy and floppy?
Gently place both feet on the ground, hips and knees at 90 degrees (you may have to get onto a firm dinning room chair). Sit upright without leaning on the backrest. Gently tuck your chin down ever so slightly, giving yourself a subtle double chin. Let your arms rest at your sides.
This may not feel comfortable, especially if you have some muscles on one side that have had to work hard to keep you upright. That’s ok just observe it. Don’t push through discomfort, keep it gentle.
Take a deep belly breath, that means breathing into your tummy letting your tummy fill with air like a balloon to the count of three through your nose. Now breath out all the way, emptying your tummy bringing your belly button to your spine, getting every last drop of air out of your lungs all… the……way…… good and breath in again into your belly.
Now shake it out.
Excellent. That was the very first step. It begins with the breath and awareness.
When the core and pelvis stabilizers have weakened over time our joints pay the price: hips, knees, ankles and feet, even our shoulders and necks. With years of load in the joints this can lead to arthritis, or can make existing arthritic pain much worse. You can prevent and treat this kind of discomfort by balancing and strengthening your stabilizing muscles. Figuring out exactly where the imbalance is and what combination of releasing and strengthening you need is where we can help.
Summer is well under way, a time when many of us are itching to get outside and get busy. Feel free to reach out. You can come in for an assessment and we can come up with a plan to keep you active.
To book with one of the therapists and read more about the variety of modalities offered visit: www.spectrahealth.net or call the Denman Medical Clinic at 250-335-2260
Written by Carmen Bedard-Gautrais,
Registered Physiotherapist and Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner, owner of Spectra Health.
