As many of you know I, Haylie Lashta, will be going on maternity leave soon, with my last day scheduling clients being June 2, 2017. I have searched for the perfect person to come in to cover for my maternity leave that can also complete women’s health assessment and treatment, and she has been found!

Kendra Usunier BMR(PT), MClSc, FCAMPT will be joining our team starting on May 23, 2017!

Biography

Kendra graduated from the University of Manitoba in 2008 with a Bachelors of Medical Rehabilitation in Physiotherapy. She went on to complete a Masters of Clinical Science in Manipulative Therapy from Western University in 2015.

Since graduating Kendra has worked in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. She returned to Saskatoon in 2012, and is excited to begin working in Warman. Having grown up in a smaller community, she is happy to return to that environment.

Kendra’s primary focus has been orthopaedics and women’s health. She has taken extensive additional training in orthopaedics, becoming a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Manipulative Physiotherapy (FCAMPT) – an internationally recognized qualification in manual and manipulative therapy. For more information on CAMPT therapists please click here.

In addition to orthopaedics, Kendra has a passion for women’s health and pre-and post-natal care. She has also taken additional courses in treatment of temporomandibular joint dysfunction, acupuncture, pain management, and myofascial release.

Kendra has a passion for ongoing education in physiotherapy, striving to provide the most up to date, evidence based treatment for patients. She assists in instructing muskuloskeletal courses at the University of Saskatchewan and within the Canadian Orthopaedic Division Syllabus.

Kendra enjoys spending time with her husband and daughter, running, playing soccer and doing yoga in her spare time.

Areas of Practice Interest:

  • Spinal Assessment & Treatment
  • Osteoporosis Management
  • TMJ Dysfunction
  • Sports Rehabilitation
  • General Orthopedics
  • Prenatal & Post-partum
  • Urinary Incontinence
  • Pelvic Pain
  • Acupuncture

Kendra’s schedule has been provided and is available for appointments. Contact us to book your appointment today! Don’t want to wait? Cole Digel has availability as early as the week of May 15, 2017.

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Case Study: A client HD came to the clinic after several weeks of shoulder, shoulder blade and arm pain. This pain started in the shoulder and moved down the arm. The client would describe the pain as ‘sharp’, ‘burning’, ‘shooting’, ‘deep achy’, and ‘pins and needles’ depending on what they did. Initially their pain would come and go, but over time the pain would stay for longer periods of time. This client found that sometimes anti-inflammatory medication and massage helped, but it always came back. Since their pain started in their shoulder it was believed that it was a shoulder injury (rotator cuff). After assessment by a physiotherapist it was identified that HD had issues from the neck resulting in shoulder and arm pain. With treatment including home exercises, stretches and programming, the client was able to return to full function and a pain-free state of being!

neck-pain

The story of HD is not uncommon. Often people are not sure where to go for a variety of issues and complaints. Your local Warman Physio is able to provide assessment and treatment of any ache or pain occurring within the body, whether it was caused by an injury or ‘just showed up’ one day.

Physiotherapists are trained to provide assessment and treatment of all the body systems including the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nervous system to identify what is causing any pain or issue.

Following is a list of conditions that Physiotherapists can help with in the neck and arm:

  • Disc bulges in the neck
    • often causes pain as is outlined in the image above with the red highlighted areas depending on the level the bulge is present
  • Nerve compression or irritation of nerves of the neck
    • pain down the arm with moving the head a particular direction like in shoulder checking
  • Carpal Tunnel syndrome
    • pain and tingling in the hand often upon waking from a night’s sleep to start
  • Rotator cuff injuries
    • pain in the shoulder often with reaching over head or behind the body
  • Tennis/Golfer’s elbow
    • pain on the outside/inside of the elbow often with lifting/carrying

 

How does the neck cause pain in the shoulder and arm?

The body is a complicated group of systems that work together to allow us to complete our everyday tasks. Our neck has 7 vertebra (C1-C7) that go from the base of the head to the base of the neck. Within your neck there are 2 joints at the top and bottom of each vertebra, and most of them are separated by small discs. Our spinal cord is enclosed inside a tunnel within the vertebra. The nerves that go down into the shoulder and arm come out from between the vertebra, through the muscles and down the arm. These nerves then control the muscles (creating movement) as well as sensation (touch, temperature, etc). If something happens to the nerve throughout it’s path down into the arm it can create issues in the movement, sensation, or both!Sometimes it is hard to figure out where pain is coming from – the muscles, joints, nerves, tendons (attach muscle to bone) or ligaments (attach bone to bone). Leave the guess work out of your pain and have it assessed by your local Warman Physio!

As physiotherapists that works with women who are pregnant and women’s health (pelvic floor physiotherapy) and many of us parents ourselves, we find that often women have many questions while pregnant.

Shouldn’t I be sore? Isn’t it normal to have pain while pregnant?

A little bit of pee when I sneeze/laugh/stand-up is ok though right?

My answer to this in short is NO!  Often newly pregnant women will be told a variety of things to appease them in reply to many complaints.

 well it’s what you signed up for…

you’re pregnant, what did you expect?

Women are often otherwise brushed off when concerns of pain are raised. This is beginning to change! Women who are pregnant need not be in pain, discomfort or other physical distress; and are often not accepting these as answers to their concerns.  Often, physiotherapy can help!

12605341_1021012697944690_92971813689463588_oPelvic Girdle Pain

First up PGP or pelvic girdle pain (think your gluts or bum, pubic bone and hips). This can often be addressed with not only manual skills of a physiotherapist but also home programming and Rost Therapy “rescue” exercises.  We work with women who are pregnant to assess and determine their specific underlying causes of the pain and provide you with a home program that helps you help yourself. Our basic principle is, if we are able to do something in-clinic to help a client to feel better then we should be able to provide a home exercise to help keep it that way.  Rost Therapy in particular takes a look at pelvic symmetry and utilizes the muscles that attach around the pelvis to promote symmetry. This can be provided to you with some home exercises to help.  To us there is nothing worse (from treatment perspective) than providing a treatment the client must continue to return and pay for over and over, ultimately not allowing them to continue their progress at home. In the image above you can see the start of the Rost Symmetry position (feet together, knees apart), often when in this position individuals experiencing SIJ pain will have one knee sitting higher than the other.

How can I help PGP now?

Check how you are sitting or laying.  We often want to cross our knees or pull them together; this creates tight muscles and tension in the inner thigh which can be an underlying cause pelvic girdle pain.  Instead of crossing your knees, cross your ankles and let your knees sit open (wider than your hips).  This is also why when laying on your side we suggest you place a pillow between your knees (think thick enough to lift knee to hip height).  This will encourage relaxation and decreased tension in those inner thigh muscles.

Pelvic Health Issues

Now, the pelvic floor and pregnancy.  We get many women who are pregnant coming into the clinic that are anxious because they haven’t been ‘doing their kegels’.  Do no fret, we do not necessarily recommend kegels to women who are pregnant.  Let’s think of the reason why for a minute.  Kegels are a strengthening exercise for your pelvic floor muscles.  These muscles are like a sling between your pubic bone and tail bone, and their main function is to close the anus, urethra and tighten the vagina.  Essentially kegels are intended to pull everything up and in.  Now, when we go into labour, we want the babies to come down and out.  See my predicament? We work with women to promote pelvic floor relaxation and function, as well as labour and delivery prep of the pelvic floor.

Leaking, pain with intercourse, back pain, hip pain, and constipation can all be signs of pelvic floor dysfunction!

How can I help my pelvic floor now?

Relax that pelvic floor! If you’re sitting in a chair imagine that you are trying to drop your vagina/vulva towards the chair (similar sensation to relaxing prior to a bowel movement) while breathing in, then rest as you exhale. This is an active relaxation.

Many times when we see women for pelvic floor therapy we find the pelvic floor is very tight and high. Anyone only ever really talks about the kegel ‘strengthen the pelvic floor!’ and strengthen we try.  Without a balanced relaxation all we do is shorten.  Imagine you go to the gym and you want to do bicep curls (hand to shoulder) and someone tells you to just pull up and hold there for 10 seconds, rest for 1 second then repeat.  Your elbow wouldn’t straighten all the way down and it would begin to stay bent.  This decreased relaxation causes tight and short muscles which makes it very difficult for them to do their job, which at this time (pregnancy) the end goal is allowing a baby down and out.  This could be one (of many) reason women are experiencing higher degree tearing of the pelvic floor during delivery.

No one individual is the same, and each assessment will lead to different treatment plans for my clients.  Which is why I recommend a comprehensive prenatal assessment when pain starts, or at approximately 32-36 weeks gestation prior to delivery for delivery prep. Keeping these things in mind could save you later.

In a nut shell: don’t ‘sit like a lady’ and relax that pelvic floor!

 

Haylie has been practicing pelvic health and focused in prenatal and post-partum care since graduating from the U of S MPT program in 2011. She now adds to this education and treatment, her knowledge and experience in pediatric pelvic health providing workshops and presentations in addition to assessment and treatment. Haylie has been advocating for treatment for women, ensuring appropriate and effective care throughout pregnancy and post-partum, and helping all expecting and post-partum moms since she started practicing. This ultimately brought her to open her family-friendly clinic in 2014.  At Warman Physio clients are encouraged to bring their infants and children to treatment if they need. Haylie was recognized as YWCA Women of Distinction finalist for Health & Wellness in 2017, the ABEX Young Entrepreneur Award Recipient in 2018, and a finalist in the 2019 SABEX and WMBEXA Awards.

Just in time for spring running weather, Warman Physio will be offering a Running Clinic March 10, 2016! The education session will provide information on:

– common running pains/issues
– typical training mistakes
– stretches that are geared towards runners to try
– possible gait analysis (chosen ahead of time)
– how to tell when an appointment is required
– possible information on ‘prehab’ before changing running routine
– the importance of strength as well as endurance and it’s affect on running

We will be providing snacks and beverages for those who attend. The location of the event will be determined by the number of people that register for the event – to register please e-mail info@warmanphysio.com titled “Registration for Running Clinic”, or call the clinic at 306-373-9355 (306-373-WELL). There will be a limited number of spaces, make sure you don’t miss out!

At Warman Physio we are continually looking to improve our client experience.  What we heard from clients in the past year is they would like to know more about various conditions, offers and promotions without having to head to our facebook page.  We have heard you and will be implementing a blog!

What will this blog do?
We are looking to provide our clients information on what we can do as Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists and Massage Therapists – what conditions, pains, aches or other treatments that can be used to address your concerns.  We will also be aiming to let our clients, and the community know about any special offers, promotions or new therapist arrivals at the clinic.

Our first full-detail blog with information will be coming to you soon, but in the meantime we will provide a quick update and some information on the exciting things we hope to present to you this year!

Staff
Since opening in November 2014, beginning with Haylie Lashta MPT (Physio) and Lauren Profit RMT (Massage) we have expanded our team to include Chelsea Porter RMT and Kevin Bergen MPT. Our very own Lauren has also had her little baby boy; He arrived December 21, 2015 named Sawyer! Lauren will be returning to clients sometime in the spring of 2016. We also will have a new Occupational Therapist announcement to round out our therapies team very soon!

Promotions
Kevin Bergen MPT is providing Physiotherapy Medical Coverage for sports events and tournaments FREE OF CHARGE for February 2016! This coverage is available on a first come basis and he already has several spots taken, but has some flexibility if you or someone you know has a team that is interested they are welcome to contact us for more details at our website , facebook page or call us at 306-373-9355 (306-373-WELL).

Upcoming blogs will provide some information on injuries and various pains that can be addressed with physiotherapy, occupational therapy & massage.  We hope to shed some light on how we work as a team to better serve our clients, and how working with us, we hope to help you, help yourself (and we often joke that ‘hopefully we will see you around town instead of in the clinic!’ Unless you wish to book regular maintenance massage of course.)

Have a particular injury or diagnosis you would like for us to discuss? Let us know! Below are some of the areas we will aim to touch on this year:

  • Shoulder Injuries: The Rotator Cuff
  • Women’s Health (from leaking to pelvic pain)
  • Pregnancy & Physiotherapy (Rost Therapy: Amazing results for resolving pain during pregnancy)
  • Sports Therapy: Injuries, Rehab and Training
  • Running: Don’t let your love hurt you
  • Headaches: Physiotherapy & Massage
  • TMJ Pain & Dysfunction: Physio can help that!
  • Knee Pain: Sprains, Strains and Arthritis
  • Back Pain: start living again
  • Sciatica… or is it?
  • Carpal Tunnel: Double Crush Syndrome and why Physio First may solve the issue
  • Infant Development

Want to know more now? Contact us at the clinic through e-mail or our online form submission (www.warmanphysio.com), phone (306-373-9355) or facebook (facebook.com/warmanphysio) and we are happy to answer any questions!