Medical diagnoses don’t need much of an introduction. They’re what you get from your doctor when you’re sick. Examples would be influenza, diabetes, or hypertension. They describe the underlying problem that is causing your symptoms.
When people feel sick, they know they need to go to the doctor and find out what’s going on to get treated. We should treat movement the same way. If you’re having pain when you move, can’t do things you used to be able to – like get on and off the floor easily, or can’t do things you want to do – like go for a bike ride or pick up a grandchild then you need to get a movement diagnosis.
A movement diagnosis does the same thing as a medical diagnosis; it describes what’s causing your difficulty with movement. Some examples would be difficulty standing from a chair because of decreased force production, poor shoulder stability, or muscle imbalance.
Diagnoses set the roadmap for treatment, so getting them right is very important. Human movement is complex and is influenced by more than just your muscles and joints. According to the APTA, movement is impacted by the following systems:
- Endocrine
- Nervous
- Cardiovascular
- Pulmonary
- Integumentary
- Musculoskeletal
Because of complex and interrelated moving the body well can be, getting a movement diagnosis correct is often very difficult. M3 performance and Physical Therapy has a team of experts in human movement and should be part of your team to help for correcting movement issues. Not only can we provide an accurate movement diagnosis, we will also design a treatment plan to correct the underlying issues and help get you moving well again.