We are currently running as usual and open for business, following the highest hygiene standards possible. If you are elderly or are immunocompromised (potentially at more risk of contracting viral infections). Please use your discretion if you are 70 or above as we would hate for you to be at risk once leaving your own home.

We can assist you remotely with advice via video consultations on Zoom or FaceTime sessions. Please ring the clinic to book such an appointment.

Do not visit our clinic if you have an onset of even mild cold-like symptoms. Please follow national advice and self quarantine for 7 days (or 14 days if you don’t live alone).

Action Physiotherapy has an action plan to continue assisting patients in with pain/ injury should more extreme measures be put in place from the UK Government. This action plan will be announced and will always be aligned with the national safety precautions.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Information:

Action Physiotherapy continues to follow the latest guidance and maintain highest standards of clinical hygiene. As a small business we are naturally worried about closure and hope this does not occur, however, we shall also follow advice as closely as possible.

Please note: our massage tables and clinical equipment are cleaned with clinical strength antibacterial wipes between patients. Naturally, this may be a concern as you do often have your face in a face hole for a period of time.
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Important: please follow guidance and do not visit the clinic if you have recently travelled from a highly infected area or situation and refrain from visiting if you are symptomatic or have been in contact with those that are or have been.

We hope you continue to book as normal and will update patients if there are any changes. A new statement will be issued should anything change.

NHS Information on COVID-19:

COVID-19 is a new illness that can affect your lungs and airways. It’s caused by a virus called coronavirus.
These pages are for the public. There is coronavirus information for health professionals on the NHS England website.
Stay at home if you have coronavirus symptoms: Stay at home for 7 days (14 days if living with others) if you have either:

• a high temperature – you feel hot to touch on your chest or back
• a new, continuous cough – this means you’ve started coughing repeatedly

Do not go to a GP surgery, pharmacy or hospital.
You do not need to contact 111 to tell them you’re staying at home.
Testing for coronavirus is not needed if you’re staying at home.

Read our advice about staying at home.
Urgent advice: Use the NHS 111 online coronavirus service if:

• you feel you cannot cope with your symptoms at home
• your condition gets worse
• your symptoms do not get better after 7 days

Use the 111 coronavirus service Only call 111 if you cannot get help online.
How coronavirus is spread: Because it’s a new illness, we do not know exactly how coronavirus spreads from person to person.
Similar viruses are spread in cough droplets.
It’s very unlikely it can be spread through things like packages or food.
How to avoid catching or spreading coronavirus

Do

• wash your hands with soap and water often – do this for at least 20 seconds
• always wash your hands when you get home or into work
• use hand sanitiser gel if soap and water are not available
• cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when you cough or sneeze
• put used tissues in the bin immediately and wash your hands afterwards
• try to avoid close contact with people who are unwell

The post COVID-19 first appeared on Action Physiotherapy.

http://appihealthgroup.com/Blog/Pilates-for-Dancers

The post Pilates For Dancers first appeared on Action Physiotherapy.

In a poll of 1000 adults ages 23 to 60, those categorised as “vigorous exercisers” were almost twice as likely as non-exercisers to say they had a good night’s sleep “almost every night”. “There seemed to be a dose-response effect,” said Dr Christopher Kline, a sleep researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “The more you exercise, the better you’ll sleep.”

Whatever your exercise habits, you’re more likely to have trouble sleeping if you sit too long during the day, the survey indicated. Respondents who sat for less than eight hours a day were twice as likely to say they had “very good” sleep quality, than did those who sat for eight hours or more. “If you spend the rest of the day sitting down, a lot of the health effects of exercise are negated,” Dr Kline said. No research before had connected sedentary behaviour with poor sleep, he said.

No difference in the quality of their sleep was reported by those who exercised at night and those who exercised earlier in the day. “This was the finding that was somewhat surprising to me,” said Dr Daniel Shade, a sleep specialist with Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. “We would say you shouldn’t exercise closer to bedtime than four to six hours. The thinking was you would be hyperactivated, hyperaroused.” As a result of this finding, he’ll probably alter the advice he gives patients, Dr Shade said.

“You might tell insomniacs they should exercise earlier in the day,” he said. “But if you are normal, apparently it doesn’t matter when you work out.” What’s important is that the more you exercise, the better you’ll sleep, “so we can tell our patients to keep moving”, Dr Shade said.

In the poll, conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, 18 per cent of respondents described themselves as “vigorous” exercisers, 25 per cent as “moderate” exercisers and 48 per cent as “light” exercisers. Nine per cent said they didn’t exercise at all.

Eighty-three per cent of vigorous exercisers, 77 per cent of moderate exercisers and 76 per cent of light exercisers – but only 56 per cent of non-exercisers – described the quality of their sleep as “fairly good” or better. The quality of their sleep improves on days they exercise, said 62 per cent of vigorous exercisers, 54 per cent of moderate exercisers and 49 per cent of light exercisers.

Eight per cent of vigorous exercisers, 14 per cent of moderate exercisers, 16 per cent of light exercisers and 24 per cent of non-exercisers said they had difficulty falling asleep. It took vigorous exercisers just 16.6 minutes, on average, to fall asleep, compared to 20.5 minutes for moderate exercisers, 22.6 minutes for light exercisers and 26.3 minutes for the sedentary. Twice as many non-exercisers (34 per cent) as vigorous exercisers (17 per cent) take medicine to help them sleep.

Only 40 per cent of vigorous exercisers, as opposed to 46 per cent of moderate exercisers, 55 per cent of light exercisers and 72 per cent of the sedentary, reported feeling tired during the day. More than twice as many of the sedentary (14 per cent) reported having difficulty staying awake at least once a week while driving, eating or engaging in social activity than did those who exercised (four to six per cent).

Just 22 per cent of those who sat for less than six hours a day described their sleep quality as “fairly bad” or worse, compared to 25 per cent who sat for less than eight hours and 30 per cent for those who sat for more than 10.

Adapted from New Zealand Herald Article 9/4/13.

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Want to stay healthy? Ask the boss to shift the office printer upstairs and get up regularly for a brisk walk.

An experiment involving 70 healthy adults found that going for a short walk on a treadmill every half hour to break up nine hours of sitting was healthier than just sitting for virtually the whole day.

It was also healthier than spending a continuous 30 minutes on the treadmill during the day otherwise spent almost entirely sitting down.

The regular, 100-second walks were associated with lower levels of glucose and insulin in the blood following the meal-replacement drinks given to all participants.

Long-term control of blood-glucose levels is associated with decreased risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The trial, done with people of normal weight in Dunedin, builds on the emerging evidence that regular movement is needed for good health in addition to the recommended half hour or more of moderate to vigorous physical activity on most days.

One of the researchers, Dr Meredith Peddie of Otago University, said similar findings were published last year from a trial in overweight and obese people who took a two-minute walk every 20 minutes during five hours of sitting.

“No one else has done the comparison to 30 minutes’ continuous physical activity, which a lot of people would expect to be as protective, but we found it was not.

“We were trying to replicate what people would do if they were meeting the current physical activity guidelines by going out for a walk in the morning and then sitting at their desk all day.”

Dr Peddie and colleagues wrote in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that a simple, non-drug aid that reduced post-meal glucose levels was “paramount to obtaining optimal long-term glycaemic (blood-glucose) control”.

Their study indicated sedentary workers would reduce their glucose levels after eating “by regularly getting out of their chair and briskly walking up and down the corridor outside their office”. They urged changes be made to the physical and social set-up of offices to provide opportunities for regular breaks from prolonged sitting, such as moving the printer further away and going to talk to people in the same building rather than emailing or phoning them.

They also urged doctors to consider advising patients to regularly break prolonged sitting with brief bouts of activity – as well as doing the currently recommended amount of physical activity.

Heart Foundation medical director Professor Norman Sharpe said a whole new perspective on the disadvantages of being sedentary was emerging. Evidence pointed “to the importance of combating sedentariness and encouraging regular movement”

Reproduced form the NZ Herald website 6 July 2013

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Startling new advice from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) states that pregnant women should avoid food in plastic containers or cans where possible, and reduce their use of personal-care products such as moisturiser, sunscreen, shower gels and fragrances, to “minimise harm” to their babies.

Women are exposed to hundreds of different environmental chemicals, many of which are found in common consumer products, every day. Exposure to large amounts of such chemicals has been linked to health problems in women and children including birth defects, miscarriages and fertility problems.

The RCOG said in its report that, with the “considerable uncertainty” surrounding the risks of chemical exposure, women should take “a safety-first approach, which is to assume there is risk present even when it may be minimal or eventually unfounded”.
Worrying about something that may in fact not be harmful at all could seem unduly alarmist. Yet although day-to-day exposure to individual chemicals is low, the RCOG warns that because they are so ubiquitous, chemical exposures could “accumulate, with the mixture effect posing potential harm”.

“Many chemicals have the potential to interfere with the hormone systems in the body, which play key roles in normal fetal development,” said Professor Scott Nelson, the chair of the RCOG Scientific Advisory Committee.
“Realistically, pregnant women are exposed to a complex mixture of hundreds of chemicals at low levels, but methods for assessing the full risk of exposure are not yet developed.”

Steps to reduce exposure to the chemicals, suggested by the RCOG, include reducing use of food or drink in cans or plastic containers, using less and fewer personal-care products, minimising purchases of newly produced furniture, fabrics, non-stick frying pans and cars, avoiding paint fumes and pesticides, and taking over-the-counter painkillers only when necessary. Women should be informed about potential chemical exposures at infertility, antenatal and well-women’s clinics as a matter of routine, the RCOG said.
Growing concerns over the risk of chemicals in everyday products to pregnant women relate to their effects on the body’s hormone system – particularly on growing babies in the womb. So-called “endocrine-disruptors” including Bisphenol A plastics (BPAs) and phthalates have the potential to disrupt the normal growth process.

BPA is found in many tins and plastic products including food containers, toys, furnishings and electrical equipment. As previously highlighted by The Independent, it has been linked to breast and prostate cancer, heart disease, impotence and infertility. Several food manufacturers have begun removing BPA from their packaging.

However, Philip Law, the public- and industrial-affairs director at the British Plastics Federation, said that, despite the report’s recommendations, modern plastics were “safe”.

“Plastics containers on the market today are the product of over 40 years of research and development,” he said.
“They have passed through the controls of chemicals legislation and been endorsed by European Commission risk assessments. They are safe.”
Dr Chris Flower, a toxicologist and the director-general of the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association, said that there was no need for “anyone – pregnant or otherwise” to worry about their cosmetic products.

However, the National Childbirth Trust, the UK’s largest charity for parents, praised the report, pointing out that “practical guidance” on chemical risks was sorely lacking in the UK.

Janet Fyle, a professional policy adviser at the Royal College of Midwives, urged pregnant women not to be “unnecessarily alarmed” by the report.
“Pregnant women must take this advice with caution and use their common sense and judgement and not be unnecessarily alarmed,” she said. “There needs to be more scientific and evidence-based research into the issues and concerns raised by [the RCOG’s] paper.”

– INDEPENDENT
Reproduced from NZ Herald 6/6/2013

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