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Physio Gems, Melbourne (2026)

10/12/2025

2025 has been outstanding!

From packing up my home and moving states, to being welcomed by a diverse team of amazing people. 2025 has been jam packed of professional and personal milestones. 🥰

Congratulations to all of the award recipients from the 2025 School of Health Sciences Excellence Awards! 🏆

Special shout out to my colleagues from the Paeds Co-LAB (Paediatric Collaborative for Learning, Allied health research and Beyond) who claimed the Interdisciplinary Research Innovation Award.

I am grateful to be a member of this engaged group of researchers, allied health professionals, and lived experience experts.

We have an exciting year ahead, bring on 2026!

07/12/2025

Muscle tone is a complex and dynamic term used to describe the passive tension of a muscle. This means, how tense the muscle is at rest.

Some people have high muscle tone, or hypertonicity where the muscle is contracted/or contracts even when relaxed.

Some people have low muscle tone, or hypotonicity where the muscle is more relaxed or flexible than a normal resting muscle.

Both forms of muscle tone are suboptimal and can result in fatigue, poor posturing, difficulty with movement patterns, increased risk of falls, and other symptoms.

Muscle tone can be assessed by a physiotherapist experienced in neurological assessment. Muscle tone is assessed both at rest and during movement. Muscle tone can be reflective of a neurological injury such as brain injury, or altered neurological pathways.

If you have concerns about muscle tone, or are confused by your muscle tone diagnosis please speak to your physiotherapist, or specialist for further information.

16/11/2025

Let’s Talk Shoes 🦶🏼
With Physiotherapist Gemma! 💎

There’s are lots of fancy shoes at the shops for young children, but do you know what really matters?

For babies, infants, and toddlers you want to prioritise time in barefoot, without shoes. 🍃

Shoes are appropriate if your toddler is at risk of injury or damage to their foot from things such as hard bark, rocks, or sticks. Shoes should be wide at the toes to allow for their feet to spread and feel the ground. They should be flexible so that they can move and walk naturally using the correct muscles and balance. The shoes should be light and not hinder their normal barefoot mobility. 🪨

If your child has difficulty walking due to a known condition, disability, or diagnosis they may be recommended a special shoe by their physiotherapist to help their walking. These shoes may be rigid, or different to this advice and that is ok! Shoes are unique to each child’s needs! 🧩

If you are unsure about what shoes are best for your child, speak to a paediatric physiotherapist or paediatric podiatrist!

Not sponsored! I just like these shoes. The brand is and they have some very cute designs. 🎀

06/11/2025

Bayley-4 🧩

Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, 4th Edition: Australian and New Zealand Standardised Edition (Bayley-4 A&NZ) is a developmental assessment tool.

Age: 16 days to 42 months

Domains:
- Cognitive
- Receptive language
- Expressive language
- Fine motor skills
- Gross motor skills

Normal value references to ‘typically developing’ same age peers. This allows results to indicate where the tested child sits in comparison to their peers. This informs clinicians whether to refer the child on for further support and how to best support the family.

This test has great clinical sensitivity and accuracy. Meaning the results are relevant and give high quality information to the health professionals and families.

if you have questions about the Bayley-4, or would like to know more about how to arrange an assessment for your child, please contact me.

27/10/2025

A FUN POST! ⭐️👚👖

This is a post for the physios like me, those who had no idea what to pack or wear to a physio conference. 😅

APASC25 was my first conference and for this reason, I did my best to pack outfits that I felt comfortable and confident in! However, there were definitely things I would change next time round.

Here is what I wore last week. ⬆️

Key takeaways: everyone dresses differently, as long as what you wear is comfortable for you and appropriate for a professional context, then you will be fine! I need to buy some blazers or jackets that fit me, shoes that aren’t joggers/sneakers, and more colours! 👗👠🧤

16/10/2025

Let’s Talk: Newborn Screening 👶🏼 🍼🦶🏼

Newborn screening can be used to assess your baby for risk of neurodevelopmental or neurological conditions such as Cerebral Palsy.
Read this post for more information!

The post includes:
✉️ A message to parents
🩷 An overview of newborn screening assessment including the GMs/GMA, HNNE, HINE, AIMS and Developmental Screening for parents and clinicians.
🩷 An overview of WHO may be considered a ‘high risk’ infant, and WHO may be suitable for newborn screening.
✨ How to seek help!
✨ How to get in contact with us.

We have also included an image that gives you a bit of a background to the awesome Australian paediatric physios behind Curly Collab content. 🩷

If you find this content helpful please like and share amongst your communities. Our aim is to support families by providing access to high quality evidence based educational information.

24/09/2025

What shoes should I buy my child? 🌱🪵⚽️

This is a common question that stumps many parents and clinicians when recommending shoes for babies, toddlers and infants. 👣

This post includes the general considerations you should keep in mind when shopping for shoes for different ages and stages. 🧩

Please note: there are always exceptions to these generalised posts so if you are unsure please speak to your healthcare team such as your physiotherapist, orthotist, or podiatrist. 🦶

23/09/2025

It’s me! Physio Gem! 🧠 💪🏼 ✨

The images are of Gemma, a paediatric physiotherapist from Australia and owner of PhysioGems.

Gemma is a highly skilled physiotherapist that works across Sydney and Melbourne.

I have a whole heap of unique skills that I have obtained from my life journey as well as my personal journey.
Each physiotherapist is so unique in the skills that they possess and just like finding a good hairdresser or the right GP (doctor), the same thing goes for your physio. The best physio for you is the one that provides you with the support and answers that you need. 💡 🙋🏻‍♀️ 👏🏽

If you have any questions or would like to get in touch please contact me via messenger or email.

11/09/2025

How to look after Little Feet!🦶 👟

This post shares considerations for you to think about when purchasing shoes for a child!

‼️Save this post to refer to in the future AND share this with a friend who is always confused by information taken out of context.

Out of context advice may include: ⚠️
“Don’t wear crocs” “High top shoes help with balance” “kids shouldn’t wear rigid shoes” “slide ons are bad” “kids should always be in bare feet” .
🦶 Use this post (and my next one) to debunk some of these statements.

👀 Turn notifications to see my next post about what shoes are most appropriate for which ages. ⭐️🏃👞 This post includes baby shoe and school shoe recommendations.

31/08/2025

Running and Scoliosis 🏃you can do hard things! 💪🏼

Today I ran the Brighton 10km race in 1:00:43, a pace of 6.03 minutes per kilometre.

🧠 During the race I felt like giving up and walking. I find it hard to stay motivated doing an activity that does not feel comfortable for my body. I felt tired and sore. Other people made running look a lot easier than it felt to me. But I kept going, because I can do hard things.

💬 I’ve been told many times before that running is high impact and not good for scoliosis. Which can be true however, it doesn’t mean that you can not run. I challenged myself with this 10km race. I made an 8 week plan (which was hard to stick too) and ended up doing 5 runs leading up to this race. I increased my stretching and spikey balling. I paid to see my physiotherapist a week prior to my race to optimise my spinal alignment and dry needle muscles that were overworking. For 8 weeks I believed in myself and my ability to run 10kms. For 8 weeks I prepared, I knew what my body could do comfortably and set an achievable goal to run 10km.

When you set yourself up for success, you can do hard things. If you have scoliosis or another challenge, you can do hard things… we just do them differently.

🥰 Big thank you to my housemate, mum, dad, and partner who supported me today in preparation for my race.

💚

18/06/2025

Transitioning Services (18-25 years old)

👶🏻 Many people with a disability or long term health condition have received physiotherapy or health services from a young age, and continue to do so throughout their life. At the age of 18-25 they will commonly transition from paediatric to adult services. This can have many challenges for all involved. 👩🏻‍🦰

Teenagers and young adults are vulnerable, particularly if living with a disability or health condition. Irrespective of their family/carer status they will often develop a trust and understanding with their physiotherapist and health team. When transitioning care services teenagers, and young adults may feel strong emotions such as loss, grief, abandonment, distrust, fear or anger in relation to the change. These emotions can inhibit their ability to readily accept and prepare for a transfer in service.

Families report:
👥 fear of the unknown
👥 lack of confidence that there would be the same level of understanding with adult providers
👥 sadness at the end of the relationship
👥 patients felt that paediatric providers “got them”
👥 parents felt that they developed a therapeutic relationship and that they will be excluded from conversations in the future
👥 strong patient and provider connections can support autonomy, confidence, and self-efficacy in the supported transitional process.
👥 trusting relationships with providers saw that patients and families learnt to honestly communicate questions and concerns, and engage with skill building.
‼️ A lived experience of a healthy relationship with a provider saw patients possess insight into what’s important to them, and move into adult care prepared to build a rapport that feels supportive, and nurture a similar therapeutic alliance.

We can support families by:
🔗 Preparing them for the transition by discussing options early and facilitating discussion and decision making
🔗 Acknowledging the feelings of parent and young adults during the transition period. Psychoeducation helps.
🔗 Linking services and transferring knowledge with informed consent.
🔗 Emphasise and empower young adults to have more autonomy and collaboration

- Shanske et al 2024

Physio Gems

10/12/2025

07/12/2025

16/11/2025

06/11/2025

27/10/2025

16/10/2025

24/09/2025

23/09/2025

11/09/2025

31/08/2025

18/06/2025

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