Rehab Lab
The most personalised rehabilitation available
When you experience pain for a long period of time, suffer from injury or undergo surgery, your body responds in a number of ways. As we’re all unique, those responses can vary widely from person to person. This can affect us in different ways; physically in the way we move, how strong we are in our sporting and daily tasks and also mentally as we all have different perspectives and worries associated with our condition.
Our research has shown just how personalised our response to injury can be. As such, we feel that your rehabilitation should reflect that. To be accurate in that approach, we have equipped our rehabilitation facility with the most accurate testing equipment around. We have several ongoing PhD studies trying to learn more about how injury affects us and the most effective ways to rehabilitate from injury. The most personalised rehabilitation available
What is rehab lab?
The aim of rehab lab is to take the inaccuracy and guess work out of rehabilitation. We want to give you and your physiotherapist or strength and conditioning coach the most detailed and accurate information possible to guide your rehabilitation.
If you have an injury then it is important to measure the impact of that injury on the most relevant muscle groups. For example, the quads, hamstrings and calf muscle groups all cross the knee joint, all of which can contribute to changing the loading on the knee. Understanding if you need to increase the strength of these muscles to help with your rehabilitation is therefore important.
Rehab lab measures how you have been impacted by your injury and guides you to the most effective rehabilitation available.
Who is rehab lab for?
Rehab lab is for anyone looking for the most effecient and effective rehabilitation available. Regardless of your age or the activity you are hoping to return to, our aim is to help you get there.
We see athletes looking to return to GAA after injury, runners looking to reduce pain or improve performance, golfers and walkers looking to reduce knee or hip pain so they can keep playing and walking, and we see people before and after surgeries including joint replacements.
Our testing is for those with plantar fascia and achilles pain, knee pain, hamstring strains, hip and groin pain, low back pain, shoulder pain and pre- and post-surgeries.
Your rehab lab appointment includes the tests most relevant to your injury and to the activities you want to return to alongside your rehabilitation session with your physiotherapist or strength and conditioning coach if you are rehabilitating with us. You will also receive a detailed report from the session indicating all of the areas that you will be working on in your rehabilitation and your training program using our exercise app.
Our testing covers plantar fascia and achilles pain, knee pain, hamstring strains, hip and groin pain, low back pain and shoulder pain.
Pre and postsurgery testing
Your surgeon may choose to refer you to Rehab lab before surgery so you are confident in what happens with your rehabilitaion after surgery. We will carry out some tests to assess range of movement, strength and power, and start your rehabilitation exercises with you on the day. We will film you doing those exercises and send them to your phone along with instructions for how many to do and any targets for you to aim for.
Rehab lab will identify areas for you to develop so that you are set for a smooth rehabilitation by being stronger going into the surgery and making sure many of the exercises you will be doing are familiar. On the day of surgery, SSC physiotherapists will make sure you have your program and understand when to start. You do not have to see SSC physiotherapists as follow up, but you can choose to continue with the team or use a local physiotherapist to you. Rehab lab data will help guide Who is rehab lab for? We want to give you and your physiotherapist or strength and conditioning coach the most detailed and accurate information your physiotherapist to improve your outcome from surgery.
You may be also referred to Rehab lab after surgery, rather than before to assess progress, work out why you are struggling with the last few percent of improvement, or to give your physiotherapist or Consultant surgeon data to make changes to your program.
What happens after the testing?
Your physiotherapist or strength and conditioning coach will go through your results with you showing you the areas that you need to work in your rehabilitation. The second half of your session is about coaching you through your training program that is fully personalised based on you and your results and gives the best chance for a successful rehabilitation.
We will set achievable but challenging targets for you to hit so that you can track your progress. We will video you performing your exercises and send them to you using our training app so that you can refer back to some of your key coaching points. Your results will be written up for you with a report of everything discussed in your session so that you are clear what it is you need to work on.
What are the tests?
Isometric strength testing
We use these tests to measure the strength of the muscles that are most relevant to your condition. You be asked to produce as much force as possible while in a static position for 5 seconds at a time against some force plates or an isokinetic dynamometer. These pieces of equipment will give us a very accurate measure for how much force you can produce and, therefore, how strong you are. These tests will then rule in or out certain aims of your rehabilitation. For example, if you have very strong hamstrings but weak quad muscles, we will want to target the quads.
Isokinetic strength testing
In this strength test, you will be asked to produce force through a large range of motion rather than statically. These tests are performed on one of two isokinetic dynamometer devices that we have in our facility. These tests allow some further analysis to detail how strong the muscles are throughout their full range of motion. For example, it is possible to have a strong quad when your leg is quite straight but for it to be quite weak when it is in a bent position. We do this with some of the muscle groups that work through a very large range of motion
Jump profiling
If you are looking to return to sports that require some amount of explosiveness, making sure that these qualities aren’t a factor in your injury is important. We have series of single-leg and double-leg jumps that you will perform on our force plates. These force plates are able to give detailed information on how high you jump, the speed of your jump, how much force you produce, whether you are favouring one leg over the other or if there is a difference between legs. These help to inform us as to how much and what type of explosive and reactive strength training you need to do to get you back to your sport or activity
Fitness testing
In some instances, we may feel that your fitness is a component that you may need to work on. This testing is performed on a treadmill or WattBike and accurately measures the maximum volume of oxygen your body can use to make muscle energy. We identify that level by pushing your body past the level where you supply enough oxygen to your muscles. This is a 10 minute maximal effort test wearing a breathing mask to measure oxygen and carbon dioxide consumption, a heart rate strap, and gives us an indication of when your oxygen level cannot be improved. It is a test to exhaustion and we use the data to plot training level zones in certain patient groups and goal setting.
Pulmonary function testing
These tests measure how well your lungs are working. You will be asked to breathe into a spirometry device that measures lung volume, capacity, flow rates and gas exchange. Your doctor may also may want to perform a reversibility test to understand how your lung function changes from before to after an intervention such as running
Our aim is that you require fewer visits in relation to your rehabilitation as we can spend longer with you in these appointments. The session will last around 90 minutes and you should leave feeling confident that you know what your rehabilitation aims are. As we can go into a lot a detail within the session, many of our follow-up appointments are done online so we can adjust your program and ensure you are making progress saving you travel time.
