A lot of people don't know what to do or where to go when you're physically in bad condition while looking for solution. These indications are only a piece of examples. Please call us for other symptoms. We'd like to help and provide the treatment you need.

Daily Activity Injuries

Some of you may had moments where you felt pain in ordinary daily activities. Going up and down the stairs, wiping the floor, making beds, standing up from a chair etc.

No matter how big or small the stress is, body parts will get damaged when it cannot handle the tensity.

Recreational Activity Injuries

There are people who enjoy jogging, hiking, mountain climing, biking and rock climbing on weekends for their recreational activities. We call these people, "Weekend Warrior".

It is actually very difficult to exercise everyday to achieve physical fitness. So sometimes when you push harder, you hurt your joints and muscles and it affects daily lives even few days after the exercise.

In order to prevent injuries, I recommend you to get the conditioning care focused on stretching before the exercise. We also recommend you to take conditioning treatment after the exercise so that you won't carry over the weekend pain and tiredness to the next week.

Even if it is an exercise for recreation, some of you may set goals or even participate in games/races and pursuit the higher records. Depending on your goals, we will help you with providing treatment such as improvement of the range of joint motion and muscle flexibility for better performance.

Musician Injuries

It is often mistaken that you will not get injured from playing musical instruments.

Lot of the times musicians keep the same posture for a long time, and also the motion is repetitious which leads to have constant pressure on local area of the body. Practicing for a long time and keeping same posture while performing on stages put stress on musculotendious tissues. The amount of this overuse stress on musculotendinous tissues and joints to perform musical instruments will be the same as the one of sports athletes. This is called Cumulative Trauma Disorder.

Dr. Leahy's Law of Repetitive Motion: I = NF / AR

We can calculate tendency and degree of the Cumulative Trauma Disorder from four physical factors. I=insult to the tissues, N=number of repetitions, F=force or tension of each repetition as a percent of maximum muscle strength, A=amplitude of each repetition, R=relaxation time between repetition (lack of pressure or tension on the tissue involved)

Prolonged muscle contraction, repeated use and sustained pressure on soft tissues all decrease blood supply to the area, which result in hypoxic condition. You may not have realized that your body is “injured”, but hypoxia with increased internal pressure and friction within the tissue can produce scar tissue.

In order to remove the scar tissue and to allow each organization to perform correctly, we will need a careful palpation and treatment for muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia.

If you can remove the stress and pain from your body, it will surely change the sound of music.

Martial Arts Injuries

Budo (Bujutsu) is for training your body and soul. The goal of it is to make the opponents neutralized effectively, not by the power but by technique.

In other general sports activities, the basic physical abilities and strong physiques will be an advantage, but in Budo (Bujutsu), it's not always necessary. You need to strengthen mental concentration and technique, flexibility, stability of trunk in order to achieve "Soft methods often get the better of brute force."

Being thrown, kicked, hit...The risk of getting injured will get higher compared to other general sports.

Recovering quickly from injury is the first priority, but also it is our goals for the martial artists to achieve stronger stability of pelvis and to improve flexibility of the hips.

Specific Sports Injuries

Some specific sports for both professionals and amateurs required special movements: kick, throw, hit, run, jump, row, swim, pick up, push, and pull.

The type and degree of the injury differs from one another depending on what kind of movement you repeated and what percentage of maximum muscular strength you used. Whether if the stress is high repetition and low load, or high load and low repetition, either way the athletes need to brush up their specific motion and challenge on games to win.

We recommend you the periodical treatment to prevent athletes from getting Cumulative Trauma Disorder, and to maintenance their body so that it won't outbreak as pain and dysfunctions.

Desk and Computer Work

This causes symptoms such as neck pain without a reason, numbness of your hand, and low pack pain from sitting too long. Sitting on the chair for a long period of time in same posture has higher stress on your body than you think. The muscles behind your neck constantly contract to keep your heavy head in the position. The muscles between the scapulae are constantly stretched and will cause poor blood circulation.

Prolonged muscle contraction or sustained pressure on soft tissues decreases blood supply to the area, which result in hypoxic condition. You may not have realized that your body is “injured” from just sitting at the desk for a long time, but hypoxia with increased internal pressure and friction within the tissue can damage muscles and produce scar tissue.

When it gets worse, it causes tension headache. If you can't avoid computers work, take one-minute rest called "Micro Breaks". Organize the comfortable deskwork environment as well as taking periodical body care. In order to remove the scar tissue and to allow each tissue to perform correctly, we will need a careful palpation and treatment for muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia. If you have the headaches incolves symptoms such as pain in the back of your eyes, or achiness in the back of your head, or stiffness in neck and shoulders, please call us.

Artist Injuries

For the athletes, sports doctors and physical trainers will take care of their body but artists also need a physical care. For using body for expression, or creating objects physical posture and movements varies.

If some parts of your body hurt even if you're not "injured", you may want to consider the possibility of Cumulative Trauma Disorder. Keeping same posture for a long time and repetitive motion will stress on certain body parts. The amount of stress and physical fatigue of muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia of artists could be as same as the one of athletes.

We recommend you the periodical treatment to prevent artists from getting Cumulative Trauma Disorder, and to maintenance the body so that it won't outbreak as pain and dysfunctions. We will approach the individual’s goal such as reducing pain, improving joint range of motion or achieve higher performance regarding the next stage or exhibition while considering the degree of injury and amount of activity.

Your physical condition will affect your artistic expression.

Physical Work Injuries

People usually remember what and when the acute injury was caused. With physical work, the contraction of the muscle is close to maximum muscular strength and only one or two times of wrong body movement or incorrect posture will lead pain and numbness.

Weight lifting at the training gym if often done by the correct form with proper breathing, which prevents you from getting injured, but it won't go the same way with actual work situation. You are often staging on a scaffold unstably as well as paying attention to other tasks at the same time.

Despite how big the stress on your body is, your tissue will get damaged when the body cannot handle it. 72 hours after the injury is said to be the acute phase, and taking care of the injury while this period will greatly affect how well and quickly you recuperate. We will modify the treating approach depending on degree of the pain and inflammation and aim for the quick return to your wok. It is important to get a treatment as soon as possible if you felt discomfort or change with your body.

Rehabilitation after Immobility

If you don't move your body for a while due to breaking bones or illness, your body will face regressive change e.g. muscular atrophy, declination of bone density, restriction in range of motion, and adhesion of tissue, more than you think. You will often face the difficulties in daily activities and palying sport due to muscle weakness and ristriction in range of motion, even though you stop going to the hospital after the doctor tell you that you're fully recovered after taking off the plaster.

Even if it looks completely healed on x-rays, it may still cause pain for months if there is adhesion in soft tissues such as muscle, fascia, and tendons. Also after immobility such as being hospitalized and staying in bed for a while will cause difficulty in moving due to the muscle atrophy and restriction in range of joint motion. Getting treatment in early stage is ideal, but we encourage not to give up on easing the discomfort and pain after many years from the injury.

Nerve Entrapment

Neurologic manifestation is more difficult to be treated than "pain". Generally, the symptoms appear more peripherally (more distally) than the actual damaged site and the painful area is not telling us the site of injury. The symptom varies, from the pain and numbness to decrease of cutaneous sensation if a sensory nerve is involved, muscle weakness if a motor nerve is involved.

We will carefully observe the pattern of neurologic manifestation and influence on dermatome and myotome, deep tendon reflex, palpation, examinatin on range of joint motion and will approach the entrapped nerve.

Pregnancy and Postpartum Care

It is indeed troublesome to conpensate the waight gain and change of the balance while you're pregnant. It causes achiness in low back, pain in hip joints, shoulder stiffness, and upper back pain. And as you gain weight, you might feel the pain and stiffness on your heals and sole of your foot.

We will approach safely and gently to the affected area, considering of proper positioning depending on weeks of pregnancy.

Actually, your body is even more under stress after the childbirth. Lack of sleep and exercise, plus feeding and holding the baby will put your body in overworking condition. Early care for postpartum conditions such as discomfort in your pelvis and hip joints, stiffness of your back, tenosynovitis, plantar fasciitis, etc leads you the quick recovery, so don't tolerate the pain for too long.

Relaxation and Maintenance

It is necessary to maintenance your body in order to enjoy your daily activities and to perform better in sports. It is same as the necessity of periodical examination and maintenance for high tech mechanicals, luxury automobiles, and musical instruments.

In our body, some of tissue damages are reversible due to abundant blood supply, but some are irreversible or slow to be healed due to the lower metabolism caused by poor blood supply. That's why we need prevention and maintenance at the stage of small discomfort before your body actually outbreaks injury.

We all wish to be able to stay active in the long term. It is important to take care of your body with periodical treatment to prevent you from getting injured, as well as daily exercise. We are going to use our body for a long time!

Neuromusculoskeletal disorder differs from each individual to another depending upon the degree of injuries or damage, and the influence to the daily lives caused by it. I'd like to share the "Voices" of our patients for the people who are keeping the pain to themselves or those who have given up.

Physical Maintenance for Sports Player

"I have worked with several ART® doctors in the USA over the past 10 years. I have found Dr. Ikuko Abe to very knowledgable, very caring, and able to listen to my needs and every time I've worked with her I came away feeling 20 years younger. Her technique and expertise is one of the best I've ever had."

Brian Watts, Professional Golfer

Easing Symptom of Disk Herniation

I have an advice to you if you are suffering from pain due to herniated disk.

After Dr. Abe's treatment and prescribed exercises, I am pain free and I even feel stronger now.

Richard Beal