Treatment of foot, knee, and hip pain are centered around improving the movement of the joints, decreasing inflammation, and improving strength and tolerance to activity.
- Foot: Oftentimes plantar fasciitis or other reasons for pain in the foot originate with very tight calves. Pain can also be from nerves coming all the way from the back, or just fascia that needs to be broken in up in the foot.
- Knee: knee pain can stem from various things. Many times improving the muscle tension and health of the muscles around the knee can be helpful. Retraining the hip muscle to control the knee during daily movements is also very beneficial. Additionally decreasing inflammation at the joint if there is arthritis can help someone get out of an inflammatory cycle through things like the cold laser.
- Hip: Hip pain often stems from the intricacies of the joint and all the muscle that need to have proper length tension/activation for ideal movement patterns. In the hip joint the hip flexors or deep hip rotators can often become too tight affecting the position of the pelvis then causing the key muscles like glute max and glute medius to be less efficient. This then further causes excessive use of the other muscles such as hamstrings, low back muscles, or deep hip rotators. Through palpation and other tests a physical therapist can better conclude which muscles are over working and which are not doing their job to improve better coordination between all the hip musculature.