Health
Gardening Pain-free from Pursuit Physiotherapy
Follow these basic body mechanics tips for gardening safely!
Gardening season is here! We want you to enjoy the outdoors without injuring yourself. It’s easy to get overzealous and spend hours in the garden without noticing an aching back or neck until it’s too late. But don’t worry, just because you have a long ‘to do’ list doesn’t mean you have to suffer the consequences. By planning ahead and being smart about your body mechanics you can help prevent soreness and injuries.
Follow these easy tips for staying healthy throughout the gardening season:
Lift properly to protect your back.
Remember to bend your knees and engage your core muscles; use your leg muscles to squat and don’t bend with your back.
- Avoid lifting and twisting through your back – instead keep the load close to your body and pivot your feet and trunk together
- Avoid carrying heavy loads on 1 side of your body – balance it out on both sides or lighten up the load and take more trips. Also consider getting help for heavy lifting – you can’t do it all!
Maintain good posture.
Position yourself close to the task at hand to avoid awkward reaching and twisting. Try to keep your back straight and head in a neutral position so that you are not looking up or down for extended periods of time.
- Use stools, chairs, or knee pads whenever possible to help maintain good neck and back posture.
- When pushing a wheelbarrow or lawnmower keep your back tall and head up. Also bend your knees and engage your core muscles to optimize your power and protect your spine.
- Take mini-breaks to stretch and correct your posture – try squeezing your shoulder blades together, or contracting your deep abdominal (TA) muscles.
Use Proper Tools to Reduce Strain
- Use knee pads for kneeling and avoid sustained squatting. This will give your knees, hips, ankles and back a break.
- Use a step stool or tools with extended handles to make overhead work easier. Bring yourself closer to your task to avoid awkward reaching and reduce neck and shoulder strain.
- Use tools with good grips or ergonomic handles to reduce fatigue on your hand and forearm muscles. Ensure they are a comfortable fit for your hand size.
Prevent Repetitive Strain Injuries
Doing the same task over and over will put excessive strain on certain body parts and muscle groups, leading to pain and injury. Here are some self-management tips to help avoid RSI’s:
- Change positions frequently to avoid stiffness and strain on certain body parts. For example try raking on both sides.
- Alternate tasks to add variety to your body movements and avoid static postures or repetitive lifting. For example do 10 minutes of weeding followed by 10 minutes of pruning.
- Take breaks to stretch and hydrate. It is important to give your body some time to recover, and adding these mini-breaks can help improve your work endurance and efficiency.
- Don’t overdo it! Create a realistic plan ahead of time so that you aren’t trying to get all your tasks done in a single day or weekend. Plan to spread your workload out over several days or weeks to avoid overuse injuries.
- Never work through pain. Listen to your body and stop when you are getting tired or sore. The task will still be there the next day or week!
Keep your body limber
- Warm-up before gardening with some light walking or gently swinging your arms and legs. This helps increase your heart rate and gets blood flowing to the muscles so they are ready to work.
- Take stretch breaks. Do some of your favourites and try to target all your major body parts – neck, shoulders, back, and legs. This will keep you feeling loose and flexible and prevent muscle tension from building up. Move slowly and hold each position for approximately 10-15 seconds.
- Cool-down. An easy walk around the yard and some gentle stretching will help relieve tension after your work and prevent muscle stiffness.
We hope these tips help keep you active, healthy, and pain-free throughout the spring and summer. If you have any lingering pain or specific concerns please do not hesitate to book an appointment for a one-on-one session with one of our physiotherapists. We will be able to assess and diagnose your injury, as well as provide hands on treatment and a therapeutic exercise program to address your specific needs.
Click for more information about Pursuit Physiotherapy.
Alberta
Province says Alberta family doctors will be the best-paid and most patient-focused in the country
Dr. Shelley Duggan, president, Alberta Medical Association
New pay model, better access to family doctors |
Alberta’s government is implementing a new primary care physician compensation model to improve access to family physicians across the province.
Alberta’s government recognizes that family physicians are fundamental to strengthening the health care system. Unfortunately, too many Albertans do not currently have access to regular primary care from a family physician. This is why, last year, the government entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) and committed to developing a new primary care physician compensation model.
Alberta’s government will now be implementing a new compensation model for family doctors to ensure they continue practising in the province and to attract more doctors to choose Alberta, which will also alleviate pressures in other areas of the health care system.
This new model will make Alberta’s family doctors the strongest-paid and most patient-focused in the country.
“Albertans must be able to access a primary care provider. We’ve been working hard with our partners at the Alberta Medical Association to develop a compensation model that will not only support Alberta’s doctors but also improve Albertans’ access to physicians. Ultimately, our deal will make Alberta an even more attractive place to practise family medicine.”
“We have worked with the Alberta Medical Association to address the challenges that primary care physicians are facing. This model will provide the supports physicians need and improve patient access to the care they need.”
The new model is structured to encourage physicians to grow the number of patients they care for and encourage full-time practice. Incentives include increases for:
- Maintaining high panel numbers (minimum of 500 patients), which will incentivize panel growth and improve access to primary care for patients.
- Providing after-hours care to relieve pressure on emergency departments and urgent care centres.
- Improving technology to encourage using tools that help streamline work and enhance patient care.
- Enhancing team-based care, which will encourage developing integrated teams that may include family physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, dietitians and pharmacists to provide patients with the best care possible.
- Adding efficiencies in clinical operations to simplify processes for both patients and health care providers.
As a market and evidence-based model, it recognizes and pays for the critically important work of physicians, including the number of patients seen and patient complexity, as well as time spent providing direct and indirect care.
“Family medicine is the foundation of our health care system. This model recognizes the extensive training, experience and leadership of primary care physicians, and we hope it will help Alberta to attract and retain more family medicine specialists who provide comprehensive care.”
Additionally, family physicians who are not compensated through the traditional fee-for-service model will now receive higher pay rates under their payment model, known as the alternative relationship plan. This includes those who provide inpatient care in hospitals and rural generalists. Alberta’s government is increasing this to ensure hospital-based family physicians and rural generalists also receive fair, competitive pay that reflects the importance of these roles.
“This new compensation model will make Alberta more attractive for physicians and will make sure more Albertans can have improved access to a primary care provider no matter where they live. It will also help support efforts to strengthen primary care in Alberta as the foundation of the health care system.”
“Family physicians have been anxiously awaiting this announcement about the new compensation model. We anticipate this model will allow many primary care physicians to continue to deliver comprehensive, lifelong care to their patients while keeping their community clinics viable.”
Quick facts
- Enrolment in the primary care physician compensation model will begin in January with full implementation in spring 2025, provided there are at least 500 physicians enrolled.
- The alternative relationship plan rate has not been updated since it was initially calculated in 2002.
- The new compensation model for family doctors is the latest primary health care improvement following actions that include:
- A $42-million investment to recruit more health providers and expand essential services.
- A new rural and remote bursary program for family medicine resident physicians.
- Additional funding of $257 million to stabilize primary care delivery and improve access to family physicians.
- Implementing the Nurse Practitioner Primary Care Program, which expands the role of nurse practitioners by allowing them to practise comprehensive patient care autonomously, either by operating their own practices or working independently within existing primary care settings.
Related information
Health
Trump doubles down on using RFK Jr. to study possible link between vaccines and autism
From LifeSiteNews
By Stephen Kokx
During a free-flowing press conference at Mar-a-Lago Monday, Donald Trump mentioned the sharp rise in autism in recent decades, adding that he has experts ‘looking to find out’ if vaccines may be the cause.
Donald Trump is doubling down on his intention to study a possible link between vaccines and autism in children.
During a free-flowing press conference at Mar-a-Lago Monday, the incoming president said there are “problems” with the massive increase in autism cases in America over the past several decades and that he intends to get to the bottom of it.
“30 years ago, we had, I’ve heard numbers like 1 in 200,000, 1 in 100,000. Now I’m hearing numbers like 1 in 100. So, something’s wrong … and we’re going to find out about it,” he said.
Trump’s remarks come just days after he told MSNBC anchor Kristen Welker that his choice to lead the Heath and Human Services Department, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will be tasked with investigating the matter.
“Certain vaccines are incredible but maybe some aren’t, and if they aren’t, we have to find out … the drug companies are going to be working with RFK Jr,” he said.
During COVID-19, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny joined a LifeSiteNews panel discussion on the science regarding the COVID shots. She warned that the experimental injections do not even qualify for the term “vaccine.”
“I refuse to call it a vaccine because it doesn’t meet any of the standards by which a vaccine is supposed to work,” she said.
In October 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) unanimously voted 15-0 to add COVID-19 shots to the U.S. childhood, adolescent and adult vaccine schedules.
Dr. Tenpenny warned about the dangers of the current vaccination schedule while attending the world premier of The Great Awakening documentary in June 2023.
“If a child gets all of the vaccines in the entire schedule, they get almost 13,000 micrograms of aluminum, and they get almost 600 micrograms of mercury, plus over 200 different chemicals,” she said. “So that’s why they’ve never been proven to be safe.”
The upcoming 2025 Immunization Schedule approved by the CDC now recommends 36 vaccinations for children from the time they are in their mother’s womb until they are two years old (four doses are given to the pregnant mother while 32 doses are injected in the child from birth to 24 months).
Dr. Simone Gold has called for an investigation into the current vaccination schedule.
“In the 1960’s children received 5 vaccine shots in total. Today, the CDC says that children should receive 72 vaccine shots, a majority of them before the age of 6. The CDC is known for corruptly advancing Big Pharma interests. This schedule needs to be investigated further,” she said on X in September.
The CDC currently advises children to receive 70 doses before they turn 18. This is a massive increase from the 1980s, when they received 24 doses. Many medical freedom activists blame the explosion in shots on the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act which gave vaccine makers legal protection from any harm their products inflict on those who receive them.
Doctors and medical freedom activists, including RFK Jr., have long maintained that the massive uptick in autism in recent decades is likely due to the increases in vaccines for children.
-
Alberta17 hours ago
Proposed $70 billion AI data centre in MD of Greenview could launch an incredible new chapter for western Canadian energy
-
COVID-192 days ago
Australian doctor who criticized COVID jabs has his suspension reversed
-
Business2 days ago
Massive growth in federal workforce contributes to Ottawa’s red ink
-
Alberta13 hours ago
Your towing rights! AMA unveils measures to help fight predatory towing
-
Frontier Centre for Public Policy2 days ago
False Claims, Real Consequences: The ICC Referrals That Damaged Canada’s Reputation
-
COVID-192 days ago
Former Trudeau minister faces censure for ‘deliberately lying’ about Emergencies Act invocation
-
National1 day ago
When’s the election? Singh finally commits. Poilievre asks Governor General to step in
-
Daily Caller1 day ago
Party Leaders Exposed For ‘Lying’ About Biden Health