Osteopath Gold Coast for Teens & Tweens
Safety of treatment and whether the treatment will help are usually your first concerns as a parent when looking for help for your child.
Is it Safe ?
As with the younger children we like to use gentle treatment, but with teens where its needed more weight and pressure can be used. Especially if we are talking 16 – 18 year old rugby players! So its very much dependent on the child, their age and their build and of course their complaint. So the treatment of a 16 year old with a sporting injury is very different from the same age patient who presents with anxiety or for learning difficulties.
So we will use a variety of different styles of treatment depending on the age of your child and what their problem is, so the treatment could be very very gentle (including cranial and craniosacral) or if appropriate it could be much more robust.
But always are keen concern is safety - we have a lot of experience treating kids, and we always do a thorough examination before treatment.
That way issues like hypermobile joints or even just simple things like when a child is extremely ticklish become obvious and we can specifically adjust the treatment style and 'weight' of touch to suit your child.
This plus communicating what we are doing and allowing your child to talk freely and feedback what they are feeling will ensure that both you and your child feel will feel extremely safe and confident in the treatment.
This is also where communication is key, you will know your child and what will suit them but it's also important to involve them in the treatment as much as possible so that they really feel a part of it.
This is particularly true if we need them to rest from an activity or to change their habits (eg stretch, change posture)
Hence the photo - we would all love are kids to have no computer - but it's really hard to sustain that, but getting them to switch to the desktop rather than the iphone/ipad is a far easier thing to do and not only addresses their posture (look at the picture to see the difference it would make to their neck) but it also a middle ground and staging post to the next change we would like them to comply with)
Having said all that with this age group we are used to 'reluctant' patients and we have heaps of experience getting the 'why' across to them.
Whether it's "do you want to run faster than your sibling" or 'like to perform better at dance or footy or martial arts" or simply would you like those headaches or stomach pains to go away.
When kids understand what's in for them then it makes a huge difference to their enthusiasm for treatment.
So for the reluctant patient as their parent your job may well be to get them to come in for that first time,
"just try it once and if you don't like it you don't have to go again"
is often the message that gets them over the line!
Will the treatment Work ?
We have a had a lot of success with this age group and this has been based on finding the route cause of the problem, for example re-occurring sports injuries can often to traced to an imbalance through the body - for example at the pelvis, - and so that original imbalance as well as the site of injury will need attention.
Equally we have found that for this age group taking an approach that encompasses what is going on for the child in their world be it at school, or peer group pressure is key, there are a lot of different and conflicting pressures on this age group and they can through both stress and the behaviour brought on by stress and anxiety (and anger. moodiness etc) effect how the child recovers from a problem and regains full health. mobility and vitality.
How many treatments will be needed?
Teens and Tweens tend to respond more quickly than adults when recovering from inuries and falls, so usually less treatment than for adults is needed.
How many treatments depends on the problem as recovering from a major car crash will take longer than a simple hamstring problem or knee pain.
How long has the problem been there is also important if for example they have had a year of this problem it will take longer to resolve.
But regardless of the problem by the end of the first visit we will be able to tell you how many treatments are likely to be needed and for many problems it can be between 1 to 3 treatments
Q What do we treat in this age group? –
This falls into 3 main areas:
Injuries & Pain
Development Problems
Health Problems
Injuries
This includes falls, sporting injuries, muscle strains, joint sprains (ankle’s, knees etc) and pain such as neck and back pain, headaches, tennis elbow etc. But it also includes post fracture recovery, pain from dental work and braces, and other odd pains and problems that won’t go away
Developmental Problems
We see a lot of Scolisois, posture and uneven posture. We also see hip and knee problems including Osgood Schlatter and other teen problems such as growing pains, shin splints, flat feet etc.
Health Problems
We see a wide variety of health problems, the most common being Asthma, gut & digestive problems (including Abdominal Migraines) and poor immune function (frequent colds, infections, low energy,)
We help with these types of problems by working on the musculoskeletal system to get the body moving better, for example if a child has asthma then we would want to ensure that their upper back and shoulders are working well and they have no tightness or restriction in that area that might add to their breathing difficulties.
This list of common problems that we see may also help
Head Bumps, Injuries, Falls
Spine, Neck and Joint Issues
Headaches and/or Stomach Pains
Growing Pains & Leg & Joint Pains
Asthma & Respiratory Problems
Frequent & Re-occuring Infections & Colds
Problems Walking, Running
Balance & Co-ordination Problems
Behavioural Problems (from anxiety through to anger)
Bed Wetting
Glue Ear
Eczma
Please note that along with all other Doctors in Australia osteopaths are regulated and governed by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). As such with regard to any non musculoskeletal conditions that are listed on this website it is it is a regulatory requirement that we inform you that our osteopaths treat the aspects of those conditions relevant to their practice of osteopathy (e.g. with a focus on the musculoskeletal system). In addition the role of this treatment can not be overstated in that every patient that we treat is a unique individual and as a result each patient's treatment outcome will vary and will be influenced by that patient's unique presentation.