11/02/19- open clinic

1 hour

What happened during this session:

My client got injured playing football 2 years ago which had him out of football for a small amount of time before he got bored of his rehabilitation programme and stopped doing it returning to his sport before he was ready to return to play. This lead to him having improper rehabilitation and injuring himself meaning he can no longer play football. The tightness of the hamstrings makes it difficult for him to perform daily tasks such as getting in and out of the car, walking up and down stairs or even walking on the flat for that matter. When massaging this client he states that he feels lighter and movements are a lot less painful, however there if not much improvement in his range of movement he feels as if he is more mobile which is a positive coming from this session.
I tested the client’s range of movement by eyeballing the joint when performing a straight leg raise in supine position.

Is the pain Sciatic nerve or hamstrings? While in this position I tested my client to differentiate if the pain was sciatic nerve pain or tight hamstrings, I did this by placing the foot into dorsiflexion while performing a straight leg raise. If the pain was to increase it would suggest that the sciatic nerve is causing the pain if the pain is static it’s more likely to be the hamstrings.
This test allowed me to assume it was the hamstrings that were painful. In this position, I continued to perform a MET on the client to help relax and stretch the muscles before massaging. I then continued to massage the client using effleurage and petrissage techniques and finished the session with a second MET stretching the hamstring using a straight leg raise and getting the client to apply 30-40% pressure against my resistance while holding their breath for 10 seconds then relaxing and breathing out for 5 seconds stretching the leg to its new bind and then repeating this process.

Areas for improvement:

Eyeballing: An area of weakness for me today was eyeballing the clients ROM. Had I of measured the angle at the client’s hip when in a straight leg raise or the distance that the ankle was off of the bed I would be able to see if there was a change in ROM and if it had increased as eyeballing was not an accurate way of measuring such a small if any improvement and for next session I will have to measure his range of movement using measuring tape of goniometer.

Confidence: Although my confidence when working with clients is increasing, when working with a new client I am not as confident in my own abilities and begin to question myself. Confidence is key and by showing that I am confident in my own abilities, my clients will have confidence in me treating them.