Tendon & Ligament Healing: A New Approach to Sports and Overuse Injury

Book Review by Jonice Owen, DC, FACO, CHom

Title:

Tendon & Ligament Healing: A New Approach to Sports and Overuse Injury

Author:

William Weintraub

Publisher:

Paradigm Publications 2003

Part #:

T-277

In today's chiropractic delivery-of-services arena, we have to be many things to many people. We need to be able to field the questions asked by an Internet-accessing patient population. We need to promote wellness and active care the natural, chiropractic way. We are on the lookout for applicable instructional materials for our patients and our office staff.

Tendon & Ligament Healing would be a nice reception-area text for these purposes. I enjoyed Mr. Weintraub's clear, easy writing style. I take pleasure in reading technical informational written in "layperson" terms, crediting the reader with respect and intelligence. He provided nice explanations for extremity mobilization and soft-tissue manipulation, making this an applicable text that could be used by the doctor, office staff and patients. This type of material assists me in formulating descriptions of adjustments, procedures and exercises that I can then explain to patients more clearly.

This would be an appropriate text to consider for patients who like to research and/or understand their injuries and treatment while under your chiropractic care. This book is appropriate for the reception area and the "loaner" shelf, explaining anatomy with understandable diagrams. It also contains more complex discussions, such as "Neural Involvement: Standard View and Recent Research Findings." Also discussed: what happens as an injury heals; what happens to the damaged tissues; and the nature of inflammation. Self-Help Strategies suggests guidelines for four-stage progression of recovery, exercise after injury, as well as instructions for patients regarding acute care (PRICE) and rehabilitative active care.

However, this text is not for doctors in search of a highly "technical" reference. A bit elementary, it orients the reader toward explanations that are straightforward. If you were attempting to keep abreast of new techniques, keep up with ongoing learning, or just trying to augment your learning, this would be a good supplemental text.

The main drawback to this book is that there is no mention of chiropractic adjustments. I find it difficult to make literature of this type available in my reception area, as I'm a doctor of chiropractic. Nonetheless, Tendon & Ligament Healing is a comprehensive text to improve explanation of soft-tissue work, active care and patient self-care. With this in mind, I give it a high rating for overall chiropractic office application.

Jonice Owen's Rating:

Ligament Healing Image02 8.5 out of 10