Loudoun County, Va. — Your hips, due to the amount of loading forces they take on throughout your lifespan, can be a common area of discomfort in the body. This condition known as arthritis is the “wear and tear” of your joint surfaces.

Hip pain can also be caused by some type of injury like a fall, sports injury or overuse/weakness of the soft tissues that support the hip. These type of injuries result in pain due to an inflammatory process. Hip pain can become worse if left untreated requiring pain medications or even surgery to manage.

How Hip Problems Affect Us Day to Day

Your hips allow you to function in your everyday activities. So having hip pain can really slow you down and interfere with tasks such as:

• Getting up from a chair
• Going on a walk
• Getting in/out of a car or bathtub
• Sitting
• Going up and down stairs

You get the point, pain equals loss of function which results in you not being able to do what you want.

Evaluating the source will lead to the cause!

A physical therapist is trained to do a thorough physical evaluation to determine the cause of your pain. For example, many people with moderate to severe osteoarthritis will feel pain referred into the groin region. Pain referred to the buttocks or radiating down the leg is generally coming from spine.

Pain lasting more than a few days likely isn’t going to go away on its own! As part of your evaluation process, your physical therapist will administer a series of tests that can be used to analyze hip pain. Some things to expect include:

• testing your strength
• measuring how your hip move
• analysis of your gait
• balance assessment

The results will help to determine a treatment plan based on your specific needs!

Note from our sponsor: Treatment will consist of exercises that are specific to strengthening the muscular structures around the hip/lower extremity that is bothering you. Our clinical team will be there to monitor and progress you along every step of the way working towards your specific goals.