Until fairly recently all pain was treated as if it were acute. If you rolled your ankle yesterday and sprained it or broke it, the pain you’ll be feeling is acute - It's related to the fact that there is some damage to the tendons, ligaments or bones in your ankle. If all goes well, in a few weeks time the damaged structures will heal and your pain will subside. 

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In the case of chronic pain the mechanisms are very different. Where acute pain is directly related to tissue damage, chronic pain is not. There may have been an injury there at some point but if it’s been going on for longer than 8 weeks, chances are that tissue is now healed. Chronic pain has is roots in the Central Nervous System (CNS) including the brain and it’s perceptions, the immune system, the endocrine system, even your gut may be involved. With chronic pain your brain registers threat where there may be no threat and your body responds as if there is damage. If it’s real for the brain it’s real for the body!

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Due to these differences and it’s system wide nature chronic pain needs a holistic solution that addresses not just your movement and musculoskeletal function but diet, lifestyle and stress amongst other things. 

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If your pain comes and goes, especially around exercise or certain movements then this is more likely recurrent acute pain and needs a different approach again. Recurrent injury is a matter of biomechanics and movement quality, posture and structural stability, level of conditioning relative to the demands placed on your body and tissue quality just to name a few. 

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This also requires a holistic approach to injury management that looks beyond the musculoskeletal system to the control mechanisms behind it. 

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The Wise Moves process begins with an assessment that is the most comprehensive of it’s kind and looks into all these factors and more to ensure that we get to the root cause of pain and recurrent injury with all our clients.