What are the common symptoms that your patients tend to present with?

The common patient cohort I treat currently present with shoulder and hip conditions. Often, they will be either direct consultant referrals and/or word of mouth referrals.

They will present most of the time with a traumatic injury due to mostly sports participation, like rugby and overhead sports. They will present with acute pain onset and diagnostics of those will depend on the clinical picture that they present with, their subjective history and the link to a comprehensive objective assessment that would then allow me to subsequently set up a working diagnosis and/or hypothesis from which we can then outline a period of treatment that would hopefully return them to their chosen sport and/or activity of choice

The second subset are those presenting with hip, knee and shoulder condition in people who have progressive onset of worsening pain. The majority will come in because of a consultant referral and/or past patients and word of mouth referrals. Those will be patients who present with gradual and insidious onset of pain, something that's been niggling for quite some time, but has now started to limit them in their chosen activity.

A lot of patients present with tendinopathy which is a gradual onset of aggravation in and around a tendon. That's to do with people's function in day to day activity, but also in sporting activity. We just work on providing them with a bit more understanding of the pathology, so that we can then engage then in a broad, comprehensive rehabilitation program which would then look to address their deficiencies, but also load the problematic tissue in a progressive manner that gets them – most of the time – back to what they want to do, but also future-proof them for any other sporting participation with the injury in mind.

What are the treatments that you're able to offer your patients?

Diagnostics-wise, physios within Pure Sports Medicine are make a subjective assessment based on the history and an objective assessment. Diagnostics-wise, we'll be linking with our sports doctors who will perform ultrasound scans, MRIs, etc. My diagnosis is largely the assessment itself. In terms of the treatment, it's often a combined approach. I'm acupuncture trained and/or stroke dry needling trained. I offer manual therapy which would include soft tissue release, manipulation and mobilisation of joints. Taping is a further adjunct that I would utilise and combine it with more strength-based progressions in their activities.

What are your areas of sub-specialist interest?

Shoulders and hips are the areas of my focus. The subspecialties are largely to do with the types of sports that I get the majority of my patients from. I have a large football-based ACL cohort. The hip injuries and back injuries that I see are linked to golf and my special interest in golf. The shoulder injuries are linked to rugby, weight training and crossfit.