Evolution

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MJHUSKERS

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Sorry if this post isn't relevant to PT schools, but since there are quite a bit of intelligiant people on this forum, I though I would ask.

I'm doing the capstone seminar for biology and the theme is evolution. So I have been trying to figure out how I can combine evolution and a topic in physical therapy because I want to apply my seminar to the field I am entering. I have been searching the academic data bases and haven't had to much luck as of now.

Anyone has a idea of how evolution can be applied to physical therapy, please post!
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I don't know if you can work with this or not, but I recently saw an article in Time Magazine within the last month, I believe, discussing a study done on running barefoot. If I recall correctly, it talked about the evolution of the foot and how running barefoot causes less stress at footstrike because the foot lands differently when not constrained by rigid footwear. As such, it concluded that barefoot running would lower the risk of injury to various lower limb joints.
 
Just brainstorming, but evolution is responsible for the entire layout of our musculo-skeletal system. You could relate common injuries that physical therapists have to deal with and why those are evolutionary weakpoints on human beings. For example, why do people have so many shoulder problems later in life? Probably has something to do with the fact that we aren't swinging around in trees anymore and our shoulder muscles have weakended over time and as a result we have less stability there.

I don't know if that is right or wrong, but it's an overall idea to consider.
 
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To add to this.

Bi-Ped vs Quadra Ped

Agonist-antagnist theory

Gait - how hominids learned not to fall but control "falling" to move forward.

Intrinsic hand/finger control

list can go on on...

So it's Musculo-Skeletal and Neuroscience... hope this helps.


JeeDot said:
Just brainstorming, but evolution is responsible for the entire layout of our musculo-skeletal system. You could relate common injuries that physical therapists have to deal with and why those are evolutionary weakpoints on human beings. For example, why do people have so many shoulder problems later in life? Probably has something to do with the fact that we aren't swinging around in trees anymore and our shoulder muscles have weakended over time and as a result we have less stability there.

I don't know if that is right or wrong, but it's an overall idea to consider.
Click to expand...
 
This is one I use with my patients a lot.

The rational brain vs the lizard brain (conscious decisions vs instinctive reactions) Often, people will develop functional responses based upon pain avoidance. For example, someone who has just undergone an ACL reconstruction has a rather large (sometimes smallish) incision on their knee, a hole drilled in their bone and part of one tendon or another harvested to replace the ACL. Their lizard brain says, "dude, you shouldn't do anything with that leg. In fact, the volume of fluid in a post-operative knee will inhibit normal quadricep contraction. If you think about how we evolved, the individuals who had a similar injury in caveman times who didn't have that response, went on the saber tooth tiger hunt and perished, leaving their sperm sadly unspent, and therefore did not procreate and failed to pass on that decidedly disadvantageous trait. Those with the inhibitory tendancies, stayed home and did not perish in the hunt.

The point is that we often have to overcome responses that would have been beneficials and basically override our lizard brain in order to have a positive rehab experience. It is natural to withdraw from pain but often, good PT involves working through some pain.

The traits that kept us alive in the paleozoic era delay return to normal function.

Take that and run with it.
 
JeeDot said:
Just brainstorming, but evolution is responsible for the entire layout of our musculo-skeletal system. You could relate common injuries that physical therapists have to deal with and why those are evolutionary weakpoints on human beings. For example, why do people have so many shoulder problems later in life? Probably has something to do with the fact that we aren't swinging around in trees anymore and our shoulder muscles have weakended over time and as a result we have less stability there.

I don't know if that is right or wrong, but it's an overall idea to consider.
Click to expand...

Even simpler would be comparative anatomy, demonstrating how all land animals have the same muscles, some have just adapted to become stronger/weaker/bigger/smaller/etc... based on need.
 
How about the evolution of hair, which gets in the way of everything from taping to ultrasound to e-stim electrode placement.
 
My small take on evolution and physical therapy:

If humans did evolve over the years as some would suspect, the proof may just lie in our forearms. Its believed that we have two bones in our forearms (the ulna and radius) to mimic the same capabilities that our tibias and fibulas are used for, and that is to absorb overall energy and shock. Most today would argue that our radius and ulna do not absorb nearly as much shock as our tibula and fibula, well that is precisely correct since we do not walk on our hands anymore ;) as evolution would depict we once did. Just look at most quadreped skeletons most have two pairs of bones in their front and rear legs after their proximal joints. (Start with monkeys first haha). Also, muscles sush as the palmaris longus (found in the forearm) has evolved throughout the years. This muscle can be found in almost all orangutangs , but it is starting to become increasingly absent in human beings. (Google palmaris longus absense some great studies have been done). This muscle is used for surgerys such as Tommy Johns Surgey, because its just not needed in the overall flexion of the hand and wrist. Plus, why do you think LBP (Lower Back Pain) is one of the most prevelnt complaints of pain in the world... hmm maybe because we are suppose to be walking on our hands and not standing erect all the time. Think about the force we put on our spines by sitting and standing its unbelievable. Don't believe me... after standing for some time, try walking around your place on your hands and feet like we once did, your back wont hurt as much. Well if evolution is true, maybe in 500 years our bodies will adapt to withstand the stresses of standing erect all the time, until then we will all still have jobs =0).

Hope this helps
 
rlw237,

Your post was very interesting! Although a bit radical, I can see a lot of relevance to what you are saying. I was a competitive gymnast for 15 years and like most gymnasts, I suffer from back pain due to excessive lordosis curviture. I also have done my fair share of handstands and am very good at holding them for long periods of time and walking on them. I have noticed that when I am doing handstands that I have no back pain as compared to when I am standing on my feet. I also, believe this is due to a lack of stress that is being put on the lower extremities and back.

I work as a physical therapy technician until I start PT school and have discussed handstands with the therapist that I work with. He thinks they are one of the worst things you can do to your shoulders. Do you agree? I definitely disagree because I have never had shoulder problems and have been told that I have very strong muscles around my shoulders and neck.

I'm interested to see what your take is on all of this.
 
I'm overwhelmed with the responses, thanks guys. It's nice to be apart of a forum with a lot brilliant PT's or future PT's. If you guys have any primary literature or articles that you've read related to some of the topics, please do post.
 
Absexton,

Yea, human evolution to me is always one of those topics a usually walk away from during discussion, because I'm all about it, and its hard to listen to the nay sayers haha.

I am not a gymnasts at all, but I have become inspired about how you guys and girls go about gaining your overall strength. I'm sure you lift weights here and there, but what good is benching 300+ when you cant hold your body weight up in the rings for more than three seconds. That said I have been trying my best to research and incorporate different workouts that gymnasts do using just pure body weight. On the top of my list of exercises would be hand stands (Also hand stand pushups). I have never once had the complaint that my shoulders hurt or felt like I was doing any harm to them. Staying on topic of evolution, our shoulders, even though they have weakened through evolution, can still handle a great deal of stress. Our ankles and femoral head take a beating 365 days a year by standing erect, but soon as we try to go back to standing on our hands for a few repetitions people are up in arms and say it shouldn't be done. If anything I would worry more about peoples backs when doing hand stands because most amateurs like to over extend their legs and force their back into hyperextenions and bounce around in a balistic motion. However, if you practice (using a wall), to get completly vertical I feel a hand stand is excellant for upper body strength, especially shoulders and forearms. Instead of using dumbbells and pressing over your head, your flipping yourself upside down, and using body weight as so called dumbbells, and its great. =0)

Staying on topic of the shoulder; I love watching people workout at gyms. They do 3 or 4 shoulder exercises and move on, all doing the same motion just a different varation (Military Press, Upright Row, Front Raises, Side Raises... Finished). Well lets see the deltoid theirs the anterior, lateral, and posterior portions, rotator cuff (supra/infra spinatus, sub scap, teres minor, rhomboids, lat dorsi, levator scap, traps (upper/middle/lower), serratus anterior. I mean thats a lot of muscles stabilizing the scapula, and a "Basic" shoulder workout only hits anterior delt, lateral delt, Upper Trap, and one or two stabilizers. Thats why so many people have shoulder issuses, is because they over train the anterior portion of their shoulders and don't focus on posterior, stabilizers, ex/in rotators and so on. Its just most people pick up a magazine, grab a clip out workout and go.

If your back feels better while doing hand stands, did you ever look into getting an inversion table (golds gym has one for 100 bucks)? haha
I slipped a disk 2 years ago and i finally got my pain down to a 1 or 2, but thats only causes i used trial and error and worked not just the area, but above and below the problem.
 
So if the title was something like:
"Evolution of Orthopedic Impairments"

What injuries could be shown that are linked to our evolution as humans?
Plantar Fasciitis - researched barefoot vs. shoe running
Low Back Pain - is there any evidence or research?
Shoulders? - They're weaker, but is there research showing the evidence
ACL Tears? - I know our knee is able bend slightly lateral while running, unlike the monkey where it is more rigid

Absence of the palmaris longus is similar to the idea of why do we still have the appendix? --This could be a topic by itself with all the surgeries and rehab because of it
 
MJHUSKERS said:
So if the title was something like:
"Evolution of Orthopedic Impairments"

What injuries could be shown that are linked to our evolution as humans?
Plantar Fasciitis - researched barefoot vs. shoe running
Low Back Pain - is there any evidence or research?
Shoulders? - They're weaker, but is there research showing the evidence
ACL Tears? - I know our knee is able bend slightly lateral while running, unlike the monkey where it is more rigid

Absence of the palmaris longus is similar to the idea of why do we still have the appendix? --This could be a topic by itself with all the surgeries and rehab because of it
Click to expand...

http://www.livescience.com/health/090824-appendix-evolution.html
 
Kind of reviving this topic because I am currently putting together the powerpoint and paper right now. So I using the story of quadrapedalism to bipedalism evolution as the underlying factor of the human muscular-skeleton/joint setup and how it relates to some typical injuries such as low back pain, rotator cuff, plantar fasciitis.

After a lot of researching in the databases, I was able to find primarily literature on each orthopedic injuries connected to bipedalism. For example, the rotator cuff evolved with bipedalism, which I did not realize, but makes perfect sense. Quadrapeds have no use of a rotator cuff since they don't work with tools, open doors, throw objects! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19949130

Anyways, I was able to find evidence like this for low back, pelvis, and the feet. I would love to hear more suggestions from you guys if you have them. Again my topic is the evolution basis of common orthopedic injuries.
 
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