Running can be a great way to get outside and stay in shape! If you are new to running or if you do well with keeping up your weekly mileage, injuries may happen. These running quick tips can help.

Seven Running Quick Tips for Injury Prevention

#1 – The 10% rule

The number 1 way to prevent injuries in the research is to follow the 10% rule, which is: do not increase mileage or time running by more than 10% each week. For example, if you run 10 miles a week, it would be appropriate to run 11 miles the following week

#2 – Running form

Pay attention to how you position your body while you run. Grab someone to run with you to give you feedback! Stand tall, look forward, keep chest forward, shoulders back and down, lean forward, and keep arms compact.

#3 – Where to land

Research shows landing softly and landing on your midfoot is best. One mistake people may have is landing on their heel (which makes you over stride and have loud feet).

#4 – Cadence

To help get a better midfoot landing when running, pay attention to how much your feet hit the ground in a minute. You want to aim for 170 – 180 beats per minute. If you are below that range, slowly increase your cadence each time you run to eventually get up to 170 – 180 beats per minute.

#5 – Warm up and cool down

Make sure to spend 5-10 minutes warming up before a run, whether that be a brisk walk or movements to warm up your body. High marches, lunge walks, leg swings, skipping, butt kicks, and high knees are some examples. In addition, remember to cool down as well. Walking for a few minutes after a run and taking time to stretch is important.

#6 – Cross training and strengthening

Cross training is a great way to give your body some rest from running, especially if you are training for a race. This means doing a different type of cardio workout to keep up your cardiorespiratory endurance (biking, elliptical, rowing machine, etc.). Strengthening has been shown to be a great way to improve running economy. Hip, legs, and core strengthening are some muscle groups to focus on.

#7 – Shoes

Find a pair of shoes that feel good and have good stability! Brands I have personally tried and like are ASICS, Brooks, and Hokas. Replace shoes when they lose adequate support or cushion. Every 300 – 500 miles is a good rule of thumb.

Warning Signs of an Injury:

What pain is okay to have?

General muscle soreness or slight joint discomfort after a workout or the next day that is gone in 24 hours or slight stiffness at the beginning of a run or walk that goes away after the first 10 minutes is okay.

What pain is not okay?

Pain that keeps you awake at night, pain that starts at the beginning of a run/walk and becomes worse as you continue, or pain that changes your stride is not okay.

If these running quick tips did not prevent or decrease any overuse running injury, or if you want to learn more, call to make an appointment at MOSAIC.

Physical therapists aren’t just for people that are injured or have had surgery. Physical therapists can also help healthy people improve their fitness. Here are 5 reasons why you need a PT to coordinate your fitness routine.

You Want a Baseline

When you see a physical therapist to improve your fitness, you’ll get an assessment of your strength, range of motion, posture, and movement patterns. This not only helps your physical therapist design a customized program just for you, it gives them a baseline to compare things to in the future should you start having pain or suffer an injury.

You Want Expert Guidance

Sure, other professionals could help with your fitness routine, but the fitness industry is not well regulated. Some certifications just require an online course and paying a fee. There are no licenses or other requirements to use many titles. Becoming a physical therapist requires at least a bachelor’s degree and most PTs practicing today have a doctorate. Every PT has passed a national board exam and maintains a state license. That guarantees you that every physical therapist is a verified expert in human movement.

You Want to Prevent Injury

Physical therapists don’t just work to heal injuries, they are also experts in preventing them. After a thorough assessment, a PT can help you design a program that will not only help you reach your fitness goals, but that can address any issues that increase your risk for injury.

You Want Unbiased Advice

Yoga instructors will want you to do yoga. Personal trainers will want you to come to their gym. Pilates instructors will want you to do Pilates. Strength coaches will want you to strength train. But, a physical therapist doesn’t have a bias or vested interest as to what type of fitness regimen you choose. They are only interested in helping you reach your goals.

You Have a History

If you have some kind of history that affects your ability to exercise, a PT is the best person to help you design a fitness regimen. It doesn’t matter if it’s an old injury from athletics or work, back pain that comes up from time to time, COPD, arthritis, or heart disease, a PT can help you safely work around it and meet your fitness goals.

Physical therapists are MOVEMENT experts. They can answer questions like, “Is squatting bad for my knees?” or, “How do I prevent movement dysfunction?” So don’t wait, call MOSAIC today to set up your evaluation and get your PT to coordinate your fitness routine. Or, if you still have questions about why a physical therapist is right for you, check out Choose PT.

When you think about a speech therapist, you might associate them with working with children. However, did you know that speech therapy can also help adults? In this article, I will explain common disorders in adults that are associated with speech therapy. I will also explain the evaluation process.

Common Speech Therapy Disorders in Adults

There are a variety of disorders in adults that a speech therapist can help with. Often, we are quick to associate speech therapy with disorders of speech, language, and communication. However, there are a variety of other related disorders:

Dysarthria

Dysarthria is a motor speech disorder. It occurs when muscles used for speech (e.g., facial, lip, and tongue muscles, or the vocal cords) become weak. This weakness can result in slowed, slurred, and/or quiet speech that is difficult for others to understand. Dysarthria affects a variety of speech subsystems including: respiration, phonation, resonance, articulation, and prosody. It can occur as a result of damage to the part of the brain that controls speech sound production. Damage can result from injury including: a stroke, head injury, or muscular disease (e.g., Parkinson’s disease).

Apraxia of Speech

Apraxia of speech is a motor disorder. It occurs when the brain experiences difficulty relaying information essential for performing speech tasks. An individual with apraxia might find it impossible to control the speech muscles used to form words and sentences. While the individual may desire to speak, they are physically unable to. In adults, apraxia can result from injury including: a stroke, head injury, or dementia. In these instances, it is considered acquired versus developmental.

Articulation

Articulation disorders often begin in adults during their formative, childhood years. Without early intervention, the individual’s “speech impediment” (articulation disorder) may persist into adulthood.

Fluency/Stuttering

Fluency/stuttering is a speech disorder that impacts the flow of speech. It affects individuals across all ages and approximately 3 million Americans. Stuttering is involuntary and can include the following: repetition of syllables, sounds, words, or phrases; prolongation, silent pauses, or blocks. It is common for a person who stutters to know what they want to say but experience difficulty expressing it. Stuttering can impact a person’s social, educational, vocational, and emotional lives.

Voice

Voice disorders occur when vocal cord movement is impacted. This can impact the pitch, volume, tone, and function of an individual’s voice. Voice disorders can originate from stress, injury, or disease. Common voice disorders include, but are not limited to: laryngitis, polyps, vocal cord paralysis, or spasmodic dysphonia.

Language Disorders in Adults

Aphasia

Aphasia is a language disorder that occurs when an individual experiences brain damage, often secondary to a stroke. Damage generally occurs on the left side of the brain which functions as the center for language. It can impact receptive and expressive modalities including: auditory comprehension, verbal expression, reading comprehension, and written expression.

Cognitive Communication

Cognitive communication disorder impacts one or more of the major cognitive processes. This includes attention, memory, language, executive function, and visuospatial perception. Difficulties can arise from frontal lobe or right hemisphere brain damage. Deficits are often characterized as cognitive communication, or cognitive-linguistic disorders.

Swallowing Disorders in Adults

Dysphagia

Dysphagia, or swallowing disorders, can impact an individual at one or more of the different swallowing stages. This includes: oral, oropharyngeal, pharyngeal, and esophageal phases. Generally, a swallowing disorder impacts an individual’s safety and comfort for all swallow functions (e.g., eating, drinking, taking pills). The cause of swallowing disorders can be a result of injury, neurological disease, stroke, medications, or other medical conditions.

Diagnosing a Disorder

Diagnosing a disorder always begins with an evaluation. Evaluation includes formal, standardized measures and informal measures. Not only is the speech therapist looking for a diagnosis but also the severity of that diagnosis.  Evaluation almost always includes an interview with the person and/or their family members. The interview process helps individualize the evaluation to the individual. Evaluation also involves some form of standardized testing.  Testing helps determine how an individual compares to average or “normal” and helps to justify services for insurance purposes. Once the evaluation is complete, the therapist will complete a report containing pertinent information from the interview, testing, and evaluation. Thereafter, a treatment plan will be created with other related recommendations.

Speech Therapy Treatment

Once it has been established that the person can benefit from speech therapy, appointments are made to meet the established plan of care. Treatment generally ranges from daily to one or two times a week. At times, treatment appointments are every other week.  Or, on a monthly basis. The therapist will provide a home program to assist progress. The more severe a condition, the more intense the treatment schedule may be.

References

1. Sherred, L. Speech therapy for adults: A helpful and definitive guide.  Expressible, LLC.
2. Hearing Sol. com.  2017.

 

Early language and literacy set the foundation for success in school. For this reason, parents must foster these skills early.

What We Know About Early Literacy

Language and literacy develop at the same time, and development begins in the first three years of life. Thus, children gain extensive knowledge of language, reading, and writing well before they enter kindergarten. A child with limited language or literacy exposure will have greater difficulty learning to read and write.

Early Literacy is Not Early Reading

Infants and toddlers do not develop literacy through formal instruction, nor is formal instruction at this age appropriate. A child develops literacy through literacy-rich experiences and parent encouraged literacy behaviors.  Therefore, you can foster early literacy behaviors by:

• Allowing your child to hold books, turn pages, and yes, even chew on books
• Encouraging your child to attend to pictures – Locate a favorite picture, point to familiar objects in a picture, and imitate actions in a story
• Helping your child recognize print as meaningful by pointing to print as you read, moving from left to right
• Providing your child with pencil/crayon to scribble (write), not just color – Letters will not be legible at this age.
• Singing nursery rhymes or doing action rhymes
• Reading to your child nightly – Reading is easily incorporated into a bedtime routine. It can be five minutes or less. You do not have to read the words to tell the story, but you can talk about the pictures or sing the story.

Books Young Children Like

Infants 0 – 6 Months

• Books with large, simple pictures with bright colors
• Stiff cardboard, chunky books
• Cloth and soft vinyl books with pictures of people or familiar objects

Infants 6 – 12 Months

• Board books with photos of other babies
• Brightly colored cardboard books to touch and taste
• Books with familiar objects, such as balls and bottles
• Plastic and vinyl books for bath time
• Washable cloth books to mouth

Young Toddlers 12 – 24 Months

• Sturdy board books that they can carry
• Books with photos of children doing familiar actions, such as sleeping, eating, or playing
• Goodnight books for bedtime
• Books about saying hello and good-bye
• Books with only a few words on each page
• Animal books
• Books with a predictable story

Toddlers 2 – 3 Years

• Books that tell simple stories
• Books about numbers, alphabet, shapes, sizes
• Simple rhyming books that a child can memorize
• Books about animals, vehicles, food, playtime
• Books about favorite TV characters

So, by focusing on the first three years of life, we provide children with the building blocks for language and literacy development. For links to studies on how early childhood literacy positively impacts success in school, check out United for Libraries. Also, for ideas to encourage early language, click here.

Can you think of anything better than a warm summer Montana day? The long days and warm weather make for great opportunities to explore the outdoors with your children by organizing summer scavenger hunts. The Gallatin Valley has no shortage of trails and rivers to discover. Going on outside adventures with your children is also a fantastic and fun way to work on language skills (without your kids even knowing they are working!). Being in nature is a great way to learn about the weather, seasons, plants, and animals. Summer scavenger hunts are a great activity because you can have your kids find literally anything.

It doesn’t have to be a huge ordeal to setup. In fact, it can be as simple as writing a list of five things to look for while you are out. Scavenger hunts can promote vocabulary development, understanding of basic concepts, following directions, etc., and your kids will have a blast hunting for “treasures” while they are out with you. It can also promote conversations with you and your children when you talk about what they found.

Summer Scavenger Hunt Ideas

Here are some ideas from simple to more complex things that you can search for on your next hunt:

1. Find leaves from three different trees or bushes (this will help to teach number concepts and you can talk about what the leaves look like or how they feel).
2. Find something rough, smooth, bumpy, etc. (this helps teach concepts and also works on descriptive vocabulary).
3. Something that rhymes with sock (or any word to work on rhyming).
4. Look for an animal that moves quickly/slowly/hops/flies, etc.
5. Find something orange/purple/brown, etc. (to work on color concepts and understanding).

In addition, if you feel like getting more creative, your scavenger hunt can have a theme. You can search only for things you’d find around the river, a camping related scavenger hunt, or go on a bug hunt. If your children are older you could even have a night time scavenger hunt where you have to use flashlights or search for stars. The possibilities are really endless.

But What If We Can’t Get Outside?

I love exploring nature and being outside, but what makes scavenger hunts so great is you can set one up anywhere. Going to the grocery store (lets find something purple, something sour, and something that smells sweet). A cold, rainy day? Let’s have an around the house scavenger hunt. Find something fuzzy, something warm you can drink, and something you need if it’s raining.

Online Resources

If you need more ideas, there are a ton of resources and free printables online. The Must Have Mom has several simple bingo like scavenger hunt printables suitable for young children. The EdVenture blog also has a list of free scavenger hunt printables for every month. If you don’t want to put together your own hunt, a simple internet search should help you find exactly what you are looking for.

Do you already love taking your kids on scavenger hunts? If so, what are some of your favorite scavenger hunt activities? Here are some great resources for even more ideas to keep your kids busy this summer!

You might hear your occupational therapist frequently referring to the term “crossing midline”. Crossing midline is a vital skill for proficiency in fine motor and gross motor skills. Imagine a vertical line cutting your body in right and left halves. Therefore, your ability to reach across that line refers to the term “crossing midline”. This is what allows you to participate in your activities of daily living. The ability to cross midline enables you to complete simple tasks like reading and writing, reaching, dressing, cooking, and participating in sports.

What would I look for if my child is struggling to cross midline?

First, observe your child in a variety of play and academic situations. Then, look for the following signs for challenges with crossing midline. Please note that the following statements are not a means for a diagnosis but rather a guide. You should visit your occupational therapist for more information on this topic.

• They appear to alternate between right and left hands or use both hands during writing tasks
• Reaching for objects on one side of the body and switching hands to place object on opposite side of the body
• They are clumsy compared to other peers
• They rotate with their whole body instead of twisting with their trunk/core
• During writing, they start with the left hand and then switch to the right hand as they write across the page

What activities can I do this summer to address crossing midline?

• Water balloon baseball: grab some water balloons and start throwing! Naturally, your child will cross midline as they swing the bat. You can also elicit it by throwing water balloons across your body towards a target.
• Car washing: grab a wash rag and some soapy water. Washing a car will guide your child into movements from left to right. Practice isolating one hand or the other.
• Painting rainbows with ice: grab an ice tray, fill with water and dye, place Popsicle sticks in each cube, and freeze! Have your child sit in a designated spot on the driveway. Use icicle cubes to create a rainbow starting on the left side of the body to the right side of the body.

And, check out this post by Your Therapy Source for 10 midline crossing games.