Physical Therapy

Plantar fasciitis. If you haven't had to deal with it personally, just ask around. Chances are you know lots of people who can describe it in great detail: stabbing heel pain and agonizing steps followed by a frustratingly slow recovery. Plantar fasciitis - an inflammation of the plantar facsia, a thick band of tissue that runs along the arch from the heel to the toes - has become so ubiquitous that podiatrists can practically make the diagnosis before a patient even sets foot in their office.

TEMPE, Ariz. - The normal - and sometimes monotonous - routine of spring training was broken up Wednesday by a string of Italian love songs on the Tempe Diablo Stadium public address system, the green, white and red Italian flag flying behind center field and plenty of Italian spoken in the press box. Team Italy was in town for its final tuneup before opening the World Baseball Classic against Mexico on Thursday, but Angels ace Jered Weaver treated...

Usually it is a car wreck. But there are also wounds from gunshots, plane crashes and falls from horses, bicycles and scaffolding. Everybody's story is a little different. Kristi Reid recalls nearly every detail of those first few hours, including the name of her emergency room nurse. Sam Barukh did not even know for a month that he was paralyzed. What they and others in recovery share in common is the lifelong effect of a spinal cord injury.

Left-handed reliever Scott Elbert is unlikely to be ready for opening day after he underwent elbow surgery for the second time in four months on Wednesday. Elbert, 27, will start physical therapy in three days but won't resume throwing for six weeks, according to the Dodgers. The hard-throwing veteran underwent a season-ending operation in September. He started feeling discomfort a few weeks into his winter throwing program, at which point the Dodgers elected to treat the problem conservatively.

I sat across the table from Chuck, marveling at his robust good health. We'd just been to see a play — and instead of looking pale and pinched after it ended, he stood up, clapping wildly through the last curtain call. Six months ago, he'd been crossing a road in the crosswalk and was hit by a car, tossed up on the hood and dropped to the asphalt crosswalk below. Chuck is 75 years old. Even before the accident he was in pain from lifelong back problems and several resultant surgeries, tossing pills down and placing a special pillow behind his back when he sat down to watch a play.

Are your New Year's resolutions to shape up annually knocked down by gymphobia ? If so, Beach Physical Therapy Inc. in Seal Beach offers help for those who suffer from an irrational fear of being in a health club filled with leotard-clad coeds and muscle-bound men. "Lots of people are intimidated by large fitness centers," said Susan Harrison, manager of the facility. "Our center doesn't have dress codes, crowds or membership fees.

So much is moving to the Internet these days: shopping, television watching, coupon hunting. Here's one more: knee replacement rehab. A study published in the Jan. 19 issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery compared a live, Internet-based rehabilitation program to a traditional one for 65 men and women who had recent knee replacement surgery. About half of the patients were randomly assigned to an outpatient physical therapy program and acted as a control group. The others did rehabilitation via the Internet with real-time sessions with a physical therapist via video, following their instructions and learning how to care for their knees (for the study, the participants did the therapy in a hospital room designed to look like an average home)

Former President Ronald Reagan is recovering so well from surgery for his broken hip that he may soon begin an accelerated program of physical therapy, his chief of staff said Tuesday. "He looks stronger each day," Joanne Drake said in her daily update from St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica. Reagan, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994, fell and broke his hip Friday at his home in Bel-Air.

Parents and others in the Capistrano Unified School District have joined with the Mission Viejo Co. to form the Challenge Foundation for Exceptional Children, which seeks to raise $60,000 for a physical therapy pool for severely handicapped pupils. The pool will be built at an elementary school scheduled to open in the fall of 1990. The school will have a capacity of 675 pupils, about 90 of whom will be severely handicapped.

Question: As a physical therapist, I was interested in your recent column about the lady who wrote regarding the need for physical therapy for her infant son. If you can contact her, she should know that her child would be eligible for free physical therapy services, either in-home or center-based, through state regional centers. She probably is in the boundaries of the one on the west side of town if she has been using Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

George H.W. Bush, the nation's oldest former president, could be released this week from a Texas hospital after nearly two months of treatment, according to a family spokesman. Bush, 88, could be released from Methodist Hospital in Houston, if doctors give him the final approval, spokesman Jim McGrath said in an email to reporters. “We are hopeful that the president can be discharged this coming week, but we're still taking everything one day at a time,”  McGrath said. If Bush is released, it is unclear whether he will return to his Houston home or be sent to a rehabilitation facility.

George H.W. Bush, the nation's oldest former president, was released on Monday from a Texas hospital after nearly two months of treatment, his spokesman announced. Bush, 88, was released from Methodist Hospital in Houston after being treated for bronchitis, a bacterial infection and a persistent cough, spokesman Jim McGrath said in a statement emailed to reporters. Over the weekend, the family said that Bush would be released shortly after receiving final clearance from doctors. “Mr.

Andrew Fabella, are you out there? Please report to post-op at Keck Hospital of USC early Monday morning. I'm coming back to have the other knee done. That's right, folks, I'm kicking off the new year by getting a partial right knee replacement because my medial cartilage is cottage cheese and I'm bone on bone, just like I was on the left knee. I need to be in top shape this year because I've got mayoral candidates to chase and a 9-year-old daughter who's already too much for me to handle on the tennis courts.

Adolf Baguma's caretakers at the orphanage call him their Christmas gift, because it was on Christmas two years ago when they found the 9-year-old in the bushes behind a building in a small Ugandan town. Like many Ugandan children, Baguma was orphaned when AIDS claimed his parents. But he had an extra burden to bear. When he was about 5, the teenage aunt left to care for him got angry and hit him in the back of the legs with flaming banana leaves. Scar tissue from the burns fused each of his legs into a permanently bent position so that he was unable to walk upright.

Medicare paid $1.5 billion in improper claims for skilled nursing care in 2009, federal investigators found. The inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday that 25% of all Medicare claims submitted by skilled nursing facilities had errors and the majority of those bills were "upcoded" for ultra-high therapy that wasn't necessary. About 15,000 nursing homes and other facilities provide this physical therapy, rehabilitation and other care to patients, often after a hospital stay.

Time and NBA defenses haven't caught up to Kobe Bryant after 16 pro seasons, but the dreaded R-word finally has. The 34-year-old Lakers star addressed his retirement after practice Tuesday, saying he remained uncertain if he would play beyond his contract that expires after the 2013-14 season. "We'll see where it goes," Bryant said. "It will be a lot of basketball being played. " Bryant has logged 1,161 regular-season games and 42,377 minutes in his career. He has two years and $58.3 million remaining on his contract and probably would have to take a steep discount to return for an additional season.

Mother Teresa, ill with pneumonia that led to a brief episode of congestive heart failure, began her first day of physical therapy Monday, said doctors at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation. The 81-year-old Roman Catholic nun, known for caring for the world's poor, was listed in fair condition as her heart remained stable and her pneumonia continued to improve. Doctors say she will not be out of the hospital for another week.

Sports stars discovered it first: The more you use physical therapy as preventive maintenance, the less time you'll rack up in rehab. This new approach to physical therapy has such a common-sense premise--identify weak muscles and build them up before they rip or strain--that everyone wonders what took so long. Preventive physical therapy is gaining favor with professional and amateur athletes as well as adults who switch or start exercise routines.

The finish line for Kobe Bryant's career may be very near. Or maybe not. His contract with the Lakers runs through the 2013-14 season, and Bryant suggested in a recent cbssports.com story he might then retire. After practice Tuesday, reporters asked Bryant if he would only play for two more seasons.  "We'll see from year to year where it goes," Bryant said. What would it take for him to come back for a third year? "How the hell do I know?" Bryant said. "It's three years from now. " Bryant suggested that playing pro basketball for nearly two decades is a major mental challenge.

DURHAM, N.C. - Evangelist Billy Graham was released from a North Carolina hospital Tuesday after a two-day stay for treatment of bronchitis, his doctors announced. "Mr. Graham had a quick recovery and responded very well to his treatment," said Daniel Fertel, a pulmonologist at Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C. "Despite this illness, he remains remarkably healthy for a 93-year-old man. " Graham, who was admitted early Sunday morning, returned to his home in tiny Montreat in the mountains of western North Carolina.