Balance and the Physio

Read an article in the Saturday's ST about balance. No - not work life balance or family life balance whatever but physical balance as in standing/walking/cycling and not falling. I have always been bad in balancing. When I was doing my NS, I remember a lot of time I cannot clear the swing bridge(?) because the darned thing keep moving when you try to run across it.

Anyway, the writer of the article was emphasizing the importance of balance in our physical life citing example of how proper balancing can help mobility especially when we grow older.

Reading this article set me thinking about some comments some friends made some time ago about the quality of the physio in CGH. Most of the comments were that the physio in CGH were not good, not up to standard and it will be better for me to go to a private physio. Now this argument is not new and it is something that I hear very often about government hospitals in general. Not just about physio, but doctors and even nurses. And I do believe there is some basis for this. Most time, the government hospital are training grounds for medical staff. There they learn and pick up their skills and once they are 'experienced' enough, they leave for private practice. So in that sense, it is not wrong to say that the physio are not very 'good' as they lack experience.

So what has this got to do with balance? The first time I learnt or heard about balancing was you guess it - at CGH. A few years ago, when I first went for the physio session, the first thing the physio did was to check my balance. He made me stand on one leg, do squats and determine that I wasn't very good in my balancing and subsequently put me through a lot of balancing exercises on the bosu ball. In fact, the physio finally discharged me only when I could prove that my balancing had improved and I could stand on one leg without quivering for 1 minutes.

Guess what I am trying to say is - the guys at CGH SMC are not that bad. Maybe they are not too good in explaining the why but certainly in term of knowledge, I think they are right on par with the best there is but maybe lack experience?

So friends, give them a chance. I did and I believe I have benefited from the sessions there. To this day, I still do some 1 leg balancing on the Flabelos because its importance has been drummed into me by the physio and as the article pointed out - it is crucial to have good balance whether it is for the purpose of doing sports or just moving around.

PS: Unfortunately I can't reproduce the ST's article here since SPH is very ngoew about copyrights issue blah blah blah