A new physical therapist has joined the team at Redefine Healthcare!

Dr. Brittany Angrosina is a physical therapist who recently graduated from the University of Scranton. She earned her B.S. in Exercise Science in 2019 and her DPT in 2022, both from the University of Scranton. During her graduate studies, Dr. Angrosina completed two orthopedic outpatient clinical rotations and one acute care rotation. She has experience with treating adolescent and adult patients with non-surgical, post-surgical, and sports-related injuries, as well as patients with balance impairments, chronic pain, and abnormal gait. Dr. Angrosina prioritizes individualized treatment plans that will best assist all patients to reach their personal goals. She is excited to join the Redefine Healthcare team and share her knowledge and skills in order to help patients in improving their functional mobility, increase ease in daily activities, and improve overall quality of life.

Schedule an appointment with Dr. Angrosina by calling (732) 906-9600.

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June is Scoliosis Awareness Month, and Redefine Healthcare wants our patients to be aware of their treatment options. Scoliosis is marked by a curvature of the spine. As many as 6 million people live with scoliosis, whether idiopathic (without a known cause) or developed during adulthood due to degenerative changes in the spine.

Redefine Healthcare provides treatment for patients with varying degrees of scoliosis and who are at different phases of their scoliosis journey. With the recent addition of three board-certified spine surgeons to our team, we also offer scoliosis correction surgery for advanced cases.

Pain Management

A curve in the spine can put pressure on discs, joints, nerves, and other structures of the spine, resulting in pain and inflammation. Pain management focuses on controlling pain and other related symptoms. Redefine Healthcare uses non-surgical modalities like nerve blocks and steroid injections to relieve pain and help patients live more comfortably with scoliosis.

Chiropractic

Spinal curvature can also result in difficulty breathing and other lung problems. While treatment from a chiropractor doesn’t exactly straighten out the spine, it can help reduce these effects by decreasing the pressure the spine puts on structures in the nervous system.

Physical Therapy

Physical therapy for scoliosis focuses on strengthening the back and stabilizing the spine. This can prevent the curve from progressing, improve your balance and posture, and reduce any pain and accompanying symptoms. Your physical therapist will also teach you exercises and other techniques to self-manage your scoliosis outside of our clinic.

Spine Surgery

If non-surgical treatment for scoliosis has failed to provide pain relief, or your condition has progressed, surgical options are now offered at Redefine Healthcare. Our three board-certified spine surgeons are experts in scoliosis surgery, including decompression, spinal fusion, and revision surgery. We use minimally-invasive techniques to reduce pain during and after surgery resulting in quicker recoveries.

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Physical therapy isn’t just for severe pain or after an accident or injury. Physical therapy can help patients of all ages with painful conditions, illness, or injuries that limit their regular ability to move and function.

October is National Physical Therapy Month, and Redefine Healthcare wants to urge patients to learn more about the discipline and how it can be applicable to your needs and goals. Here are five reasons you might consider seeing a physical therapist.

• Improve mobility, balance, and strength. If you have trouble standing, walking, or moving, physical therapy can help. Stretching and strengthening exercises can help restore your ability to move. Physical therapy helps take care of your body’s mechanics.
• Avoid surgery. When physical therapy eliminates pain or heals an injury, surgery may no longer be needed. When surgery is unavoidable, pre-surgical physical therapy can help with a better outcome. By heading into surgery strong and in shape, you can bounce back faster.
• Prevent injury. Physical therapy can be a preventative type of care. Participating in sports or exercising can increase your risk for specific types of injuries, and physical therapists can design appropriate injury prevention programs.
• Manage aging. We are at risk to lose muscle mass and strength as we get older, leading to conditions like joint pain and arthritis. Physical therapists can help patients recover from surgeries like a joint replacement, or manage symptoms of degenerative conditions conservatively.
• Help control a disease or condition. Physical therapy can effectively manage conditions outside of chronic pain and injury, like those of the heart, lungs, or weight. For example, exercise can help control blood sugar, which may be one component of an overall diabetes management plan.

Redefine Healthcare offers the newest pain management and physical rehabilitation treatments in multiple New Jersey locations. Top-rated physical therapists and massage therapists provide long-term pain relief and the most up-to-date techniques for avoiding future injury. Visit our center if you experience persistent neck pain, upper/lower back pain, or sciatica.

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According to the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, overuse injuries account for 50 of all sports injuries. While all overuse injuries differ in location and severity, these injuries are mostly preventable.

An overuse injury occurs when bones, ligaments, muscles, or tendons are put under ongoing stress with little time to rest or heal. Because they are the result of repetitive trauma, overuse injuries develop over time, due to training or technique errors like incorrect form, not giving the body enough time to rest and heal, or focusing on one activity for too long.

Common Overuse Injuries

• Tennis Elbow: Lateral epicondylitis, known as tennis elbow, occurs when the tendons in your elbow are overworked, caused by repetitive gripping activities, like tennis or weightlifting. The pain of the tennis elbow occurs primarily where the tendons of your forearm muscles attach to the outside of your elbow.
• Golfer’s Elbow: Similar to tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow develops in those who repeatedly use their wrists in gripping activities. However, pain associated with a golfer’s elbow occurs on the inside, rather than the outside of the elbow.
• Rotator Cuff Injury: The rotator cuff tendons stabilize the shoulder joint by attaching muscles originating at the shoulder blade to the head of the humerus. These tendons are commonly irritated with repetitive overhead activities or liftings like swimming, tennis, or baseball.

Treatment for Overuse Injuries

• Cutting back the intensity, duration, and/or frequency of an activity
• Ice and/or heat therapy
• Anti-inflammatory medications

If conservative treatments don’t alleviate symptoms, a sports medicine doctor at Redefine Healthcare can evaluate your condition and suggest a proper treatment plan, which may include one or more of the following interventional techniques:

• Physical therapy
• Regenerative medicine
• Injections

Preventing Overuse Injuries

• Warm-Up: When your body temperature increases during a warm-up, your joints loosen, allowing for increased blood flow to your muscles, which puts less stress on your joints and tendons.
• Pace Yourself: Instead of jumping right into a new sport or pushing yourself too hard during a new exercise routine, give your body time to acclimate by gradually increasing your intensity and activity level.
• Rest & Recover: Prioritize rest so your body can heal. Listen to your body and stop if you have signs or symptoms of injury.

If these injuries sound familiar and you think you may be suffering from an overuse injury, don’t allow your condition to get worse. Schedule an appointment at Redefine Healthcare with our experts in sports medicine by calling (732) 906-9600.

The post Preventing Overuse Injuries – Tips & Treatments appeared first on NJ's Top Orthopedic Spine & Pain Management Center.

The holidays are right around the corner. Whether it’s planning a safe family gathering or last-minute holiday shopping, the holidays add extra responsibilities and stress to your already busy schedule. Add in increased time with family members or worries about COVID-19, and you’re most likely feeling more stressed than usual.

Stress and pain, unfortunately, go hand-in-hand for chronic pain sufferers. As stress can exacerbate chronic pain, you may be feeling it more than usual this time of year, with no time to slow down. There may not be a way to totally eliminate stress or pain from your life, but you can take steps to manage it. Here are Redefine Healthcare’s best tips to limit stress-related pain.

Eat Well & Stay Hydrated

While we would never ask you to pass on your sister’s delicious homemade apple pie, you should be conscious of the extra sugar, carbs, and gluten you may be consuming at holiday meals. Enjoy good food and good company, but don’t go overboard; poor nutrition isn’t doing anything for your body, and not to mention, extra weight can put extra strain on your joints.

*Dehydration can also affect bones and joints, resulting in stiffness and soreness. Be sure to drink plenty of water!

Exercise

Exercising may be the last thing you feel like doing when you’re stressed or in pain, but getting some movement in, even something as simple as a walk, can make you feel better. Exercise can both boost your mood and ease some of your pain. “Motion is lotion,” and making a conscious effort to add movement into your day can provide some relief to stiff joints.

Take Time To Rest

When you’re allocating your time and planning out activities, make sure to set aside some for yourself. First and foremost, make sure you’re getting enough sleep. Not only can lack sleep make your stress worse, but it can also make the pain worse too. Your body needs rest to repair itself, and if you aren’t getting enough, you’re doing a disservice to yourself.

Get Help!

If you’re in pain, you should see a specialist. There are a ton of simple, non-surgical options available for pain management. At Redefine Healthcare, we offer chiropractic manipulation, physical therapy, and interventional treatments like corticosteroid injections, nerve blocks, and more. Schedule a consultation with one of our pain management doctors by calling (732) 906-9600 or at https://redefinehealthcare.com/

The post How To Handle Stress and Pain During The Holidays appeared first on NJ's Top Orthopedic Spine & Pain Management Center.

Those who experience joint, neck, or back pain throughout the year understand the weather’s impact on pain levels. As the air gets colder, the fluid in your joints moves less freely, making joints stiff and painful. The cold also causes your body to contract, making your muscles more reluctant to stretch.

If you’re feeling the effects of the colder weather this year, see the experts at Redefine Healthcare. Here are 3 pain management techniques we offer that can help relieve some of your pain this winter:

Chiropractic Manipulation

In colder temperatures, your muscles are reluctant to stretch out, preferring instead to draw in in an attempt to stay warm. Rigid and inflexible muscles can lead to a higher likelihood of injury, in addition to existing pain. Our chiropractors can help keep stiffness at bay with regular chiropractic adjustments to keep your muscles and joints loose and flexible.

Physical Therapy

An exercise plan put together by our physical therapists can help you manage pain year-round. Physical therapy is a recommended method for battling stiffness or soreness in the winter for the simple fact that movement creates heat in your body. Jumping rope, stretching, and other simple exercises help to warm up your muscles and keep them from getting too stiff.

Joint Injections

For deeper pain that may not just be a cause of stiff muscles, Redefine Healthcare offers non-surgical treatments for pain management, including steroid injections. Steroid injections are administered by a pain management physician. Depending on the location of your pain, medication, often an anesthetic and anti-inflammatory solution, is injected into a joint or space in order to decrease inflammation and irritation in the targeted area.

At Redefine Healthcare, we aim to provide all the tools you need to manage your pain year-round. If you find yourself suffering more than usual over the colder months, schedule an appointment with one of our pain specialists to learn how we can help by calling (732) 906-9600 or at https://redefinehealthcare.com/

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Redefine Healthcare is now taking patients at our new location in Bayonne, NJ!

Redefine Healthcare has teamed up with Compass Medical Healthcare Associates to open a new location in Bayonne. Compass Medical Healthcare Associates is a multi-disciplinary practice, providing conservative and nonconservative care, with a goal of returning patients to optimal musculoskeletal health. Aligning perfectly with Redefine Healthcare’s patient philosophy, Redefine is proud and excited to partner.

Dr. Michael Pezza and his team at Compass Medical Healthcare Associates will now be tier-1, in-network providers alongside Dr. Freeman and the Redefine Healthcare team. This location will offer pain management with Dr. Freeman, physical therapy, and chiropractic services.

The Bayonne office is located at 11 West 25th Street, Bayonne, NJ 07002, and is now open for patients. Call (732) 906-9600 to schedule an appointment.

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If you experience knee pain, you may assume that you have a knee problem – but that’s not always the case. While a knee condition may indeed cause knee pain, it may also be caused by a problem with your back, such as a pinched nerve or a disc protrusion. The lower back contains nerves that transmit sensation to the legs and feet.

On occasion, an injury or simply age can cause the discs in this area to press on these nerves. This compression can cause the nerves to send out pain signals, resulting in pain in the lower back itself – or along the nerve pathways in the legs, knees, ankles, and even feet. Your physician can diagnose the cause of your back or knee pain and help determine what treatments will be right for you. Some of the possibilities include:

1. Physical Therapy

Working with a physical therapist includes identifying the cause of your pain and designing treatments to address the underlying cause and provide effective relief. In general, when you arrive for your physical therapy appointment, you can expect consultation and an exam to evaluate your gait, any abnormalities in your bones or joints, your range of motion, your strength, your balance, and any signs of injury. Then, your physical therapist will prescribe a treatment plan tailored to your needs that may include exercises, stretches, and other therapies such as massage or the application of heat or ice.

2. Chiropractic Manipulation

Another possible path to relief is chiropractic care. A chiropractor may help treat the underlying issues that are causing your discomfort using chiropractic techniques designed to alleviate pain and help improve your overall health. Typically, a chiropractor will have a variety of possible angles of approach to treating pain, from applying ice to reduce inflammation to using massage techniques to increase range of motion to using chiropractic manipulation to help mobilize areas of restricted movement.

3. Spinal Cord Stimulators

If you are experiencing back pain or knee pain that originates in the back, then a spinal cord stimulator might be a good option for you. Spinal cord stimulation is often used when non-surgical pain relief measures have been unsuccessful. This treatment can be used to address many different types of chronic pain, including back pain, post-surgical pain, and more. Spinal cord stimulation is often a good choice for patients who have not had good results from medications and other minimally invasive therapies and those without psychiatric disorders, which can reduce the effectiveness of the treatment.

4. Medication

There is a range of medications that can help treat back and knee pain. These drugs are often used with other treatments such as physical therapy or chiropractic treatments to achieve optimal relief. Medication options include:

• NSAIDs are frequently the first line of defense when it comes to back and knee pain. These drugs help decrease inflammation and, therefore, pain.
• Opioids may be an option in patients with severe pain that does not respond to other treatments. These drugs are generally safe when used for short periods.
• Muscle relaxants. Muscle relaxants are available by prescription and reduce pain by affecting the central nervous system. This type of medication usually causes drowsiness.
• Even if you aren’t depressed, antidepressants may help relieve your pain. Some research has shown that certain antidepressants are effective in reducing chronic pain.

Redefine Healthcare is a Tier-One, In-Network provider comprised of top-rated, board-certified physicians specializing in minimally invasive procedures that afford patients a pain-free lifestyle without surgery. Four minimally invasive ways Redefine Healthcare can treat back pain are:

1. Epidural Steroid Injections: There’s a reason epidural steroid injections are the most commonly administered injection; they effectively relieve back pain. As the name indicates, a steroid is injected into the epidural region of the spine. Epidural injections can be used to treat sciatica, spinal stenosis, spondylolysis, or disc herniation.
2. Radiofrequency Ablation: This safe and effective treatment for back pain utilizes a radio wave to send an electric current that heats nerve tissue, effectively numbing the pain receptors of the nerve.
3. Facet Joint Injections: The facet joints are small joints along the spine that help provide stability and mobility and can become painful from arthritis or injury. The steroid medication injected into the facet joints can relieve pain, allowing the patient to endure a physical therapy or rehabilitation routine better.
4. Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) Therapy: Used by professional athletes, PRP Therapy involves placing a blood sample from the patient into a centrifuge to concentrate the platelets in the blood by separating them from the plasma. The PRP injected into the pain area is meant to encourage more efficient healing, attributed to the healing and clotting properties of the concentrated platelets.

At Redefine Healthcare, we focus on non-invasive and minimally invasive treatments for back and knee pain of all types. Contact us today for a consultation to learn more about your options.

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Redefine Healthcare is excited to announce our new physical therapist, Dr. Bhumi Patel, PT, DPT as our newest addition to the Physical Therapy Division.

Educational Background

While Dr. Bhumi Patel is Redefine Healthcare’s new physical therapist, she is not new to the world of physical therapy. Dr. Bhumi Patel received her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Seton Hall University in New Jersey with a bachelor’s degree in Biology. She is certified in Blood Flor Restriction Training and LSVT-BIG Program. Dr. Patel has worked in a variety of settings including home-care and outpatient clinics, with prior internships as a student in sub-acute rehab and acute hospital care. She is also a member of the American Physical Therapy Association.

Specialties

By incorporating evidence-based literature into her treatment program, Dr. Patel strives to keep her patients engaged and active in the community. Aside from treating musculoskeletal and spine disorders, Dr. Patel has a special interest in vestibular rehabilitation. With a passion for movement science, Dr. Patel has been treating patients with orthopedic, neurologic, gait, and balance diagnoses at Redefine Healthcare. Dr. Patel believes in providing excellent care to her patients with empathy and compassion to help them reach their functional goals in their recovery process. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and spending time with her family, hiking, and traveling.

If you would like more information about our new physical therapist or Physical Therapy Division, please contact us at (732) 313-2610.

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Physical medicine and rehabilitation, or PM&R, is not a well-known specialty, but it packs a powerful punch for those who benefit from it.

What Is PM&R?

In the simplest terms, PM&R is a specialty in medicine that helps to restore functionality to people who are living with a disability due to a disease, a disorder, or an injury. A PM&R physician oversees multidisciplinary care avenues that address the patient’s physical, emotional, medical, vocational, and social needs.

A PM&R physician, or a physiatrist, addresses more than the pain associated with a disability. While doctors may prescribe medication to mask the pain, a PM&R doctor treats the whole person by collaborating with a variety of health care professionals to design a holistic program that includes physical therapy, stretching exercises, massage, and medicine for short-term relief.

Who Should See a PM&R Physician?

Anyone who wants treatment for conditions that affect the brain, spinal cord, nerves, bones, joints, ligaments, muscles, and tendons may benefit from PM&R support. Here are examples of when you should consider seeing a PM&R physician:

• An accident left you with limited function or pain.
• You are recovering from the effects of a stroke or other types of nerve damage.
• You experience chronic pain from a stress injury or arthritis, or you have back problems that continue for more than three months.
• An illness has diminished your ability to move easily.

How a Physiatrist Treats Your Condition

A physiatrist will tailor a plan to address the specific needs of your ailment. For example, if you have chronic neck pain, there are short-term and long-term options and medical procedures to help. For short-term pain relief, engage in massage and stretching—a doctor may also prescribe medication to lessen your discomfort. Your doctor could prescribe strengthening exercises to prevent future pain. If surgery is necessary, he or she will work with your surgeon before and after the procedure.

A PM&R physician determines realistic goals, finds relief for your pain, and works with you to achieve success in rehabilitation and exercise programs. Your physiatrist is there when you have setbacks and will reassess a new strategy, make changes, and create new goals so that you never feel alone in your quest for improvement.

Benefits of Rehabilitation

Disabilities are typically not curable but improving the lifestyle of someone with a disability is vital in maintaining their sense of well-being. Rehabilitation doesn’t reverse or undo the damage, but it does restore a person’s bodily functions in a positive direction. A patient will find that they improve in the following ways:

• Treatments help to prevent complications from the disability.
• Function improves, allowing for greater movement in the areas reduced by the disability.
• Tools allow the patient to adapt to their environment.
• Coaching the patient as well as the family helps them to adapt to changes in lifestyle and mentality.

If you can perform an activity after rehabilitation that was impossible before, the psychological impact is enormous. The mental effects of returning to work after a successful rehabilitation process can also be immensely encouraging.

By visiting us and seeing a PM&R physician, you will be on your way to functioning at your highest level. Contact us today to partner with a physiatrist for a treatment plan tailored specifically for you.

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