Physiotherapy for children: is your child or teen experiencing muscular pain?

Think your child or teen is too young for back pain?

Have you heard them say after a long day at school that their back feels sore? During exams? Even post-sports?

A meta-analysis done by Morena et. al (1) demonstrated that physiotherapy was a useful tool in treating adolescent back pain, whether it was coming from a growth spurt, sports, stress, or even something structural such as scoliosis.

Let's explore these further.

‘Growth pain’ is something we see commonly in pediatric physiotherapy, because children’s bones grow faster than their muscles.

If your child has experienced a recent growth spurt, this can create extra tension on the muscle and surrounding structures, for example their back, knees, hips, etc. We also sometimes see this in adolescents and children who are playing a high level of sport.

This can result in what feels like a constant stretch or a feeling of weakness, or can just be uncomfortable.

Physiotherapy can help with a combination of hands-on and exercise-based therapy targeting the muscles to create more stability and help your child adapt to their ever-changing bodies.

We all want our young ones to be healthy and active. Sometimes if we are dealing with some pains, it may be as simple as resting and finding out the best way to help the body adapt and compensate. 

Think your child or teen would benefit from physiotherapy?

Here is what a session can look like. One of our physiotherapists will thoroughly interview, assess, and find out what is causing said pain.

Then with a combination of hands-on treatment and exercise, we will aim to compensate and train the specific structure and help the body to adapt.

The best part of working with a younger population is the creativity and functionality that one can apply to exercises. We can tailor exercises to specific sports, hobbies (even gaming), and find a way to fit them into your young one's life without you needing to constantly remind them. 

If your child has pains, aches, or has long-term athletic goals and wants to drop in for an injury-prevention program, we promise we can make physiotherapy fun and exciting for anyone.

Reference:

1. García-Moreno JM, Calvo-Muñoz I, Gómez-Conesa A, López-López JA. Effectiveness of physiotherapy interventions for back care and the prevention of non-specific low back pain in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2022 Apr 2;23(1):314. doi: 10.1186/s12891-022-05270-4

Daphné Auclair is a French-Canadian Physiotherapist and Pilates Instructor, who studied in the Netherlands before moving to South Australia in 2022. Her special interests include working with children, jaw issues and exercise rehabilitation.