South African-based Namibian goalkeeper Loydt Kazapua has praised physiotherapy for getting him back into competitive shape after suffering a tibia injury in March 2014.
He collided with a striker while trying to prevent him from scoring, and broke his tibia. The tibia forms the lower half of the knee joint above and the inner protuberance of the ankle below.
“Physiotherapy was the best I could get as it helped with the recovery process. I had to commit and attend sessions every day, repeating the same things every day, which became boring. Due to the injury, I had to repeat certain things and that was frustrating, but I had to do it. As the person undergoing the therapy, you don’t see the progress because mentally, you are in another state of mind,” he recalled.
Kazapua said therapy has now become part of his routine to stay fit and injury-free.
Like him, every person who is engaged in a physical, tasking activity for a living, be it for school or as a profession, should have a physiotherapist on speed dial to regularly consult for advice regarding injury prevention or ergonomics (occupational safety at work).
“It is important to engage a physiotherapist during recovery from any injury or movement disorder to ensure that one gets the maximum possible restoration of their pre-injury state and functional potential,” stated senior registered physiotherapist Munashe Chinyama. He noted that it is always better to prevent injuries than to treat them.
Chinyama pointed out that under- and over-training, and inadequate warm-ups are the most common injuries by far, especially in sports personnel. This includes lifting heavy objects, and prolonged working in postures that cause repetitive body
strain.
Physiotherapists treat musculoskeletal pain like back, neck and shoulder pain, sports injuries like sprains and fracture dislocations, help rehabilitate movement disorders caused by neurological conditions such as CVA (stroke), and help improve and restore functional mobility as well as
independence.
Chinyama’s key areas of focus are sports physiotherapy, orthopaedics/trauma and rehabilitation of injuries in and out of the hospital, education and clinical research, all the while still studying MSc Sports Physiotherapy at the University of Cape Town.
He works with hospital in-patients who are undergoing various stages of rehabilitation from different injuries and disabling conditions, additionally externally consulting the Namibia Football Association, treating sports injuries of football players and sometimes travelling with the teams on tours. “I remember at the very first hospital I worked as a student physiotherapist, some 10 years ago, I read “We Treat, but God Heals”.
Most of the time we treat injuries and people recover completely, but in extreme cases where irreparable damage is sustained by the body tissues, recovery might not allow a full restoration of pre-injury function,” he admitted.
Chinyama said in those circumstances, they still ensure that the highest possible rehabilitation potential is realised. An example is a complete spinal cord injury, where one gets paralysed and might not walk again.
“In this case, physiotherapists, alongside other multi-disciplinary team members such as occupational therapists, train patients in the use of adaptive devices such as wheelchairs that may still improve the level of functional independence”.