David and Danny got in touch with Local back in the Fall and we figured they were ideal candidates for a story in our Mind Body issue. After all, they’ve been working in the area for twenty years and have seen all there is to see in the fields of orthopaedic and sports injuries. We thought it would be interesting to find out what has changed – if anything – and discovered there have been several shifts over the years in ideas around healing injuries and preventing them. They cover both in their story and can help you even more in person if you have a specific question. Nice guys and very good at what they do.
On a mobile browser, here’s the copy. Otherwise, the pdf is at right.
Twenty Years of Evolution in Orthopædic & Sports Medicine
STORY: David Evans & Danny Kuzmich, East Toronto OrthopÆdic & Sports Injury Clinic
When we heard from Danny Kuzmich and David Evans and found out they had been in practice for nearly 20 years, we were curious about how their practice has evolved over that time.
Since 1994, when Physiotherapists David Evans and Danny Kuzmich established East Toronto Orthopaedic and Sports Injury Clinic, they have been busy helping people in the local community recover from injury, accidents, and other pain and musculoskeletal disorders. David and Danny continue to treat clients and also coordinate their clinic’s growing team of health professionals.
David is often asked what type of problems they treat the most, and he answers that a typical client is “someone with a problem stopping them from doing what they want to do.” The client could be an athlete with a pesky knee, a mom with young children and back pain, or an elderly client experiencing challenges with balance.
Over twenty years there have been changing trends in treatment, as new approaches to problems emerge. One example is the role of exercise during injury and pain. Mechanotherapy is a term used to describe stimulation of tissue by exercise, or external forces. In the past, thinking leaned toward resting injuries but, over the last decade, there has been clear evidence that appropriate exercise during an injury can be a good thing. Prescribed exercise will often speed up injury recovery, particularly in conditions such as tendon and muscular strains.
In a related field, research has been done with respect to the relationship between pain with injury and exercise. Should we exercise our injury if it causes pain? New neuroscience work has shown that everyone experiences pain differently, and that what the brain perceives as pain does not always mean bad things are happening in the tissues.
Another area of growth has been the use of “Prehab,” where rehabilitation work is done prior to a surgery, or pre-season conditioning is done to avoid injury during a sports season. Some client groups have shown very positive effects, such as prevention of knee ligament injuries in girls’ sports and clients awaiting ligament repairs in the knee, or knee replacement surgery.
More specific approaches are being taken to treatment of different problems. In simple terms, we shouldn’t rehabilitate a distance runner like we would a hockey player, nor should we treat all hockey players in the same manner. Similarly, an office worker with a chronically sore elbow shouldn’t be treated like an electrician doing overhead work.
To keep up with trends, clinic staff are constantly updating skills and knowledge to be sure they are guided by the best evidence from research and from experience. One thing that will always remain the same is the clinic’s goal to help all clients get on the ‘road to recovery’.