Management of plantar heel pain & evidence-based exercise prescription for
common lower body musculoskeletal disorders

Docenten : Prof. Michael Rathleff & Henrik Riel (Aalborg University, Denmark)

Content: 

Plantar heel pain (previously known as heel spur or plantar fasciitis) is one of the most common causes of foot pain with a lifetime prevalence of 10%. Patients often describe the pain as walking on pins and needles and it is worse during the first steps in the morning or after prolonged periods of rest. There are many different treatments that are more or less evidence-based but what should first-line treatment be? Do we initiate the same treatment for the 28-year old long distance runner and the 56-year old overweight factory worker? X-rays show that only two out of three patients with plantar heel pain have a heel spur. Regardless, patients are often under the impression that their pain is caused by a bony protrusion on the heel bone so how do we convince them that exercises or stretching can help relieve the pain?

In addition to the aforementioned condition, we will be talking about evidence-based exercise prescription for other common musculoskeletal disorders, load progressions, how to build a fruitful patient/therapist relation, and how to improve exercise compliance.

Learning objectives:

1: Be able to differentiate plantar heel pain and plantar fasciopathy from other common types of foot pain
2: Improve your confidence in deciding on which of the many available treatments you should prescribe
3: Have an up-do-date knowledge about the risk factors, deficits and prognostic factors that you can you use to tailor treatment to your patient
4: Tools and ideas on how you may be able to progress your rehabilitation from early rehab to full return to sport.

Doelgroep van de cursus : Kinesitherapeuten, sportkinesitherapeuten, manueel therapeuten, osteopaten en artsen.

Inbegrepen : Syllabus, lunch en koffiepauzes.

Accreditatie : aangevraagd via Pro-Q Kine

Michael Rathleff is an associate professor and clinical researcher with a background in physiotherapy. He is positioned at the Research Unit for General Practice at Aalborg University, where he is the head of the research group for optimizing physical health in youth (the OptiYouth research group). Michael has published more than 70 papers within the field of physiotherapy, sports medicine and primary care research. His primary research area is adolescent musculoskeletal pain. Michael’s work aims to: 1) understand why some adolescents develop long-lasting musculoskeletal pain; 2) develop effective strategies for managing adolescent musculoskeletal pain; and 3) study the long term impact of adolescent musculoskeletal pain. A special interest is patellofemoral and heel pain in adolescents. Michael works one day a week at Aalborg University Hospital, where he continues to be closely involved in clinical research and knowledge translation.

Henrik Riel is a physiotherapist who is currently completing his PhD at the Research Unit for General Practice in Aalborg, Denmark. Henrik has worked with adolescents with patellofemoral and heel pain, particularly on methods to improve exercise dose through real-time feedback from an iPad during exercise performance. The focus of his research is on resistance training as treatment for musculoskeletal conditions, and exercise compliance.