Hands on treatment, reducing pain (2 photos)

If you’re suffering pain from a recent illness, injury, surgery or flare ups from a chronic condition, a variety of physiotherapy services are available to patients who need outpatient treatment at the Group Health Centre at 240 McNabb Street.

The dedicated and compassionate GHC physiotherapy team will help you get moving again and improve your overall health, and is the subject of this week’s Mid-Week Mugging.

The group consists of five therapists in total, each one focusing on a particular area of physiotherapy.

Lisa Amsden, GHC physiotherapy department supervisor, works in acupuncture and vestibular rehab (‘vestibular’ pertaining to the inner ear and balance), Dominic Turco in concussion therapy, Donna Hakansson, Fleur Nelson and Marlo Tadashore in pelvic floor therapy (Hakansson is also an acupuncturist).

“I wanted to help people, to provide a service that I know is going to be able to help people in the community regain their quality of life,” said Turco, when each GHC physiotherapist was asked about why they entered the field.

“There’s a lot of patient interaction. It’s not just one quick visit and they’re gone, you get to see them regularly and build up a relationship, which is nice,” Nelson said.

“It’s a very rewarding career,” Hakansson added.

“It’s hands on. You can do things with your hands and they feel better, you get lots of positive feedback. If you’ve hurt your ankle, for example, we see you, get to know you, and help you from not walking to getting you back to work,” Amsden said.

“With our pelvic therapy…we treat incontinence and pelvic pain. For me that’s been rewarding, how life-changing it is, when someone is able to leave their house again and have more of a social life, and not have pain. Emotionally and psychologically the impact it has on patients, it’s huge, more than anything I’ve ever done in physiotherapy,” Nelson said.

“It (pelvic therapy) has been under serviced, and it’s something no one has talked about until recently,” Hakansson said.  

“It’s rewarding getting concussion patients back to their pre-injury level of functioning. It takes some time, but to have them leave here saying they’re back to themselves is something you feel good about,” Turco said.

For Hakansson, an experience in her own family inspired her to get into physiotherapy as her chosen profession.

“My brother was hit by a car when he was nine. He had a broken leg and major head injuries, and was in a coma. Before that I had never heard of physiotherapy (fortunately, her brother fully recovered).”

“With the opioid crisis, there’s been a huge focus in terms of education for physiotherapists in treatment for pain management in place of medication, and how we can manage it with education and exercise. We want doctors to be more aware of that as well as the general population, that we can help a patient manage pain as opposed to relying on medication,” Nelson said.

Australia, Hakansson said, has made leaps and bounds in treating pain management.

“I think with the opioids, docs are trying not to prescribe them as much as they can, knowing there are alternatives out there. Acupuncture is a wonderful tool that helps with pain.”

New hands on techniques are constantly being introduced, rather than new physiotherapy devices.

“It’s more active treatment than passive treatment,” Nelson said. 

“We use the equipment (such as exercise bikes) as an adjunct to what we’re doing,” Amsden said.

“I always tell people the equipment, whatever it may be, and the acupuncture, is to help with pain, but it’s the exercise that’s going to make them feel better.”

Still, the GHC Trust Fund, through fundraising efforts, has recently supplied the department with an adjustable bed and Interferential Current Machine (which produces mild electrical currents that pass through the affected area of the patient, providing a therapeutic effect, the machine worth approximately $3,500), but a new exercise bike and weight bench is still needed.

“Our bikes are old, they’re sturdy old German Monark exercise bikes, but they’re getting older and they need to be replaced,” Amsden said.

The physiotherapy department at GHC has been helping patients for 45 years.

“Anyone can receive physiotherapy services (at GHC),” Amsden said, the therapists able to treat patients without a doctor referral.

In terms of payment for therapy, it is free of charge through the Ministry of Health’s Community Physiotherapy Clinic Program if you are referred by a doctor or nurse practitioner, have a valid Ontario health card, are 19 or younger, 65 or older, or any age if you were admitted to a hospital for an overnight stay within the last 12 months as the reason for your referral.

Patients may also be funded by private insurance, WSIB, car insurance following a collision, or patients may also self-pay.

Each GHC physiotherapist attends to 18 to 20 patients per day, Amsden estimated, some patients having more than one appointment a week, depending on the illness/injury.

Neurological physiotherapy, dealing with stroke recovery and brain injuries, is centred mostly at Sault Area Hospital.

It is important to note medical equipment at GHC, contrary to what many of us may believe, is not funded by the government, and the Group Health Centre is currently fundraising to buy equipment for several of the centre’s departments, including:

• a new mechanical lift to help nurses with mobility issues ($3,500)
• five new bedside monitors ($10,400 each)
• three endoscopes, tiny cameras on long thin tubes which take photos inside the body to help diagnose a problem ($35,000 each)
• two pediatric scopes, which are endoscopes for children ($35,000 each)
• a colposcope, which is a special scope designed for use on the female reproductive system ($30,000)
• an ears, nose and throat (ENT) cautery unit, which uses electric currents to destroy tissue to reduce bleeding or remove undesired growths ($21,000)
• two suction machines, for removal of excess fluid or gases ($1,200 each)

In total, the Group Health Centre has set a goal to raise $285,000 for surgical equipment.

To learn more and support the GHC in its fundraising efforts, go online to the centre's website.