15 Oct Rehamed Therapy Keeping Injuries At Bay

Introduction

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics in August 2018 claimed that sports therapy is one occupation group that is projected to have the fastest employment growth in the next 10 years. The reasons for this are twofold:

• People are today generally interested in health, fitness and prevention, as well as maintaining physical activity to improve health. Sports related injuries will more likely occur in an active population, old and young, especially those involved in highimpact sports and movement (e.g. triathlons, tennis, running etc.) resulting in the need to restore injured joints, prevent or manage injuries.

• Modern medicine means that we are living longer, and surviving serious illnesses and injuries are probable in the most part. Old age also brings aches and pains and ensuring a healthy life requires exercise and we have an ageing population that is increasingly active (even athletic). Therefore managing pain and rehabilitation therapies are growing in demand.

Why Sports Therapy?

Joerg Teichman

Joerg Teichman was a national athlete for Germany (in pole vaulting and track & field) and when he was injured, he received treatment from the best physiotherapists to enable him to compete again. Even back then, he wanted this facility to be available to everyone, professionals and otherwise, who received injuries through playing a sport or during exercise. Thus began Joerg’s interest in functional therapy, biomechanics and generally learning about how the body works. At Leipzig University in Germany, Joerg studied sports science and sports rehabilitation, graduating in 1994. He quickly realized the benefits of physical therapy and sports therapy:

• Pain management with reduced need for medication

• Avoiding surgery

• Improved mobility and movement

• Recovery from injury, trauma, stroke or paralysis

• Fall prevention and improved balance

• Strengthening specific parts of the body and muscles

Building Success in Malaysia

Whilst working for the Bavaria Clinic Centre of Excellence Leipzig, Germany as a sports therapist in 1997, Joerg received a call from Rebound Asia (international recruitment and sourcing organization), who were seeking therapists from around the world to work for the Commonwealth Games, Malaysia. He arrived into Kuala Lumpur in 1997 and has lived here ever since.

Joerg worked for Rebound Asia, treating Malaysian athletes, until the end of the Commonwealth Games in 1998. He was also a part-time trainer for Malaysian high-jumper, Loo Kum Zee. Joerg spent 21 years working for the National Sports Institute (Institut Sukan Negara) as a therapist, leading operations of the organization’s Rehabilitation & Reconditioning Centre. His expert skills have led him to treat numerous national athletes like World No 1 squash champion, Datuk Nicol David and two time Olympic medalist diver, Pandalela Rinong. The list of success stories are in fact endless!

In 2018, determined once again that sports injury treatments should be available to everyone, coupled with the rise of the “fitness wave” as he described it, Joerg teamed up with long-time friend and fellow German, Angela Burchardt and former editor of The Star newspaper, Dato Charles to set up Rehamed Therapy, a recently opened physiotherapy and rehabilitation centre in UOA Business Park, Shah Alam. Joerg’s vision is for the centre to be accessible to non-athletes too and more importantly, to raise awareness on the importance of maintaining joint strength through prevention and rehabilitation.

Incidentally, both Angela and Datuk Charles were past patients and such is their trust in Joerg’s expertise that they wanted to partner Joerg in Rehamed Therapy. The key to success in this profession is motivation, determination and love of sports – for Joerg, it is football and today, he continues to kick-around regularly with this team, the Malaysian Grasshoppers.

Rehamed Therapy Centre

First impression upon entering the Centre is the bank of German state-of-the-art diagnostic and training machines fitted with chip cards to record patients’ data and progress at the touch of a button. The machines measure and chart body strength throughout the training and this, for Joerg is a big motivating factor for clients. There are 6 fully trained resident therapists – 2 sports scientists and 4 physiotherapists, all trained in medical and rehabilitation therapy offering a client centric service. The Centre is not just about sports treatment but can treat all sorts of muscular skeletal problems and ailments.

Delivering the best holistically

Getting to the root cause of any presented problem is what it’s all about for Joerg and his team, whether it is clients with lower back problems, slipped discs, orthopedic pains, requiring post-surgical rehabilitation or just prevention therapy. Nothing starts without a full body assessment to identify strong and weak muscles, evaluation of posture, movement, flexibility and of joint motion, bone deformation (if any), balance and strength testing. Setting tailor-made goals in partnership with the clients is then easier to achieve. Joerg is determined that his clients are not passive recipients of any of the therapies offered because taking responsibility is key to the recovery process. The most common injuries presented are lower back problems, neck, knee, shoulder, ankle and hip joint pain, where the range of motions is very often restricted – graphically (and scarily) described by Joerg as the body saying, “you are overusing me!”

Rehamed Therapy is all about returning confidence to their clients, for them to use the muscles and joints previously causing pain and to live as normally as possible. At the end of treatments, clients will be given a prevention programme to do in order to avert injuries and damage in the future. According to Joerg, “mostly, people are not sick, they are injured. They can use their mind and other parts of their bodies. The body actually has unused energy up to 100 years! Do not rely on Dr Google, trust your own body to function for you. Seeing your body regain full fitness is the best reward ever.”

The following quote, which greets visitors to the Centre, sums up Rehamed Therapy’s raison d’être:

“Health isn’t everything, but without it, everything else is nothing” – Schopenhauer, German Philosopher

For more details about Rehamed Therapy, contact +603 5031 5946 or email info@rehamedtherapy.com.my