Today I am going to discuss about Achilles Tendinopathy, a common pathology of tendon found around the heel.
I had an opportunity to participate in the webinar conducted my Mckenzie USA. It was highly informative so, I wanted to share my experience and some of my knowledge that I gained from the webinar.
Achilles Tendinopathy are stubborn tendon pain which are difficult to treat and requires minimum of 12 weeks of Progressive Loading Strategies, as per the recent research. Too much load causes further damage whereas, too less have little to no effect.
Common features of Achilles Tendinopathy includes; pain during running, jumping, skipping. Basically, any activities that requires the tendon to participate in high intensity workout too fast
Here are some Cardinal Signs and Symptoms of Achilles Tendinopathy:
1. Pain is always localized:
Achilles Tendinopathy if present are always local meaning the pain location never changes and is not affected with time. It is usually present along the middle 1/3rd of the tendon.
2. Increase Pain with Load:
Tendon which are going through inflammation cannot handle sudden change in load. It is always accompanied by pain. Example; sudden change from walking to jumping or running causes intense pain.
3. Pain on Palpation:
Though Mckenzie never relies on palpation as an evaluation technique. It is just a feature of tendon inflammation. However, changes in pain with palpation does not quantify the treatment process.
4. Morning Stiffness:
As with all the inflammation, morning stiffness is a common feature in Achilles Tendinopathy.
Some of the Risk Factors are as follows:
1. Pronation of calcaneus (O Neil 2016)
2. Loss of Dorsiflexion
3. Weak Hip Abductors
In my next blog, I am going to discuss about the evidence based treatment for Achilles Tendinopathy and how to differentiate it with 6 other common tendon pathologies found around ankle.
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