ow that you know all about plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinitis, and shin splints and what YOU can do about these conditions, let’s have a few words about what WE have available at Catskill Rehabilitation & Sports Medicine to help you help yourself with these and other foot and ankle problems.

First, and most importantly, we can teach you the stretching and strengthening exercises you need to do to prevent, rehabilitate and recover from injury. Strength training through conventional methods may be augmented with isokinetic training. This is particularly effective in knee, foot and ankle injuries. Your home/gym program may include free weights, resistance machines and graded resistance with Theraband.

We make orthoses to correct faulty foot mechanics which often contribute to the foot, ankle, knee and back problems associated with fitness activities.

Our physical therapists are expert in the treatment of all sorts of sports and dance injuries, particularly those involving the lower extremities. Although principal emphasis is on manual therapy (including medical massage, and soft tissue mobilization) and exercise, we use a number of state-of-the-art modalities, including ultra-sound and electrical stimulation. Iontophoresis and phonophoresis are methods of driving medication into tissues (using electricity and ultrasound respectively) without resorting to injection. This reduces the chances of adverse reactions and side-effects, and maximizes specificity. The medication goes directly to the tissue requiring treatment and there are minimal to no systemic effects.

Proprioception might be defined as the unconscious sensing of where the different parts of your body are located in space. For example, your body automatically knows where your foot is when you walk without having to look down and check it. This sense may be severely damaged as a result of such an athletic injury as a sprained ankle. Proprioception must be restored before recovery can be completed. To that end, you may be trained on the mini-trampoline, the therapeutic ball, and/ or the balance (BAPS) board. You will also be given proprioceptive exercises to do at home.