Challenge Your Mind & Body With Dr. Mike Donohue

"Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed." - Thomas More

An updated schedule of upcoming events, seminars and learning opportunities from Dr. Michael Donohue and Rehabilitation & Spinal Care of Rockford.

May 16th (Every Thursday)

5:30 pm @FitMe Wellness

Core Science: A 30-minute class that focuses on, and emphasizes the most important muscles to exercises when performing "core" exercises. The "core" is a buzzword in health and fitness circles these days, but there is a gross misunderstanding of what core exercises actually are, and their ultimate purpose. Come prepared to learn (a little) and sweat (a little more).

May 18th

10:30 am @FitMe Wellness 

FitMy Back: A proactive approach to back, neck and spine health using the state-of-the-art FitMe Wellness equipment. Dr. Mike Donohue will demonstrate and explain to you a fitness regimen that keep your back muscles and joints in optimum shape.

June 15th

10:30 am @FitMe Wellness

Science of You Core: Core Fitness is a buzz term, but it is also an essential component of overall health. Find out why the muscles of the ore might not be exactly what you once thought, and effective and efficient ways to train them.

June Date TBD:

Functional Assessment & Rehabilitation of Golfers: An event open to the public and golfers in particular, this learning experience will discuss a wide-variety of golfing issues including swing mechanics, common upper and lower body injuries and concepts and techniques for rehabilitation and performance training.

The Nightmare Injury For The Tennis Player

For those of us who play tennis, the dreaded tennis elbow is an injury that has caused much consternation and many days, weeks and months of lost activity time. The repetitive twisting, or appropriately termed, supination and pronation of the forearm at the elbow joint leads to chronic inflammation of the tendons that attach the forearm to the upper arm.

The extensor tendons of the forearm are affected with tennis elbow

As seen in the picture of the forearm below, the extensor tendons are the primary tissues affected with this overuse injury. Tennis elbow may be more commonly referred to as lateral epicondylitis. 

In a recent study found in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), it was found that "Corticosteroid injections and physical therapy, either individually or in combination, failed to help patients with "tennis elbow" except for a short-term benefit seen with the steroids, a randomized trial showed.

Additionally, it was noted in the journal article, that follow-ups one (1) year later found worse outcomes for patients who sought cortisone shots (steroid injections) as compared with those who received a placebo. So the steroid shots only provided short-term relief and did not solve the problem.

Overuse injuries such as this, and its counterpart, golfer's elbow are effectively treated at Rehabilitation & Spinal Care of Rockford without the use of steroids. Treatments are focused on restoring full, painless, range-of-motion and correcting the biomechanics that ultimately caused the condition to flare up.

Unfortunately, this and other chronic conditions are not self-limiting and tend to persist without corrective care, so don't live your life in pain and unable to perform the activities that you enjoy. Call the office today at (815) 394 0309 to schedule your initial appointment. 

Core Tread & Gait Training at Fit Me Wellness

Attention all runners - next Tuesday, March 6th, join the running craze at Fit Me Wellness for Core Tread and have a computerized, digitized printout of your gait pattern examined and explained.

What is gait training you may ask? Well, let me explain. Your gait is your walking pattern, from the moment that your heel strikes the ground all the way through the entire cycle until that same heel hits the ground for your next step. Often times, this can become dysfunctional and this can lead to a large number of problems, not the least of which is back and leg pain.

The test is extremely simple and efficient, but can provide a lot of important information, especially for runners, whose feet take a lot of abuse over the course of a run.

The Core Tread program begins at 7 pm and lasts until 8 pm. Testing will take place for one hour before and one hour after beginning on March 6th.