Joint pain

What is it ?

Many children experience joint pain at some time in their childhood which may be due to a number of different factors. Common causes of joint pain include:

• Trauma as a result of acute injury e.g. muscle strain
• Overuse injury
• Pain due to hypermobility or laxity of joints
• Pain secondary to poor posture

Less commonly joint pain may be an indicator of infection or inflammatory conditions such as juvenile arthritis or even an indicator of serious illness such as neoplasm. It is therefore important that the symptoms of joint pain are investigated especially if there is no obvious cause to the parent or child.

What we can do ..

Our team of specialist paediatric physiotherapists can provide a thorough assessment of a child’s symptoms in order to establish the potential reason or cause of the pain. In cases where the cause is musculoskeletal in origin treatment  we will aim to address :

• the underlying cause of the joint pain such as weak or tight muscles or poor posture
• core strengthening exercises
• provide advice on pain management techniques
• provide exercises to strengthen muscles and give advice on injury prevention.
• provide advice on taping
• injury prevention
• proprioception

If the cause of the pain is not identifiable or appears to be systemic in nature (e.g. several joints affected) the physiotherapist may recommend referral back to a doctor in order to confirm a diagnosis or rule out serious illness before offering treatment.

What you can do ..

You can assist your child to manage their pain by providing pain relief, heat packs, massage a pain diary etc.  Opportunites to exercise , stretch and warm up with supervision are all import ant and you can assist your child or their coach with this .