Neck & back pain
The ache that has been there for months, and the one that arrived overnight.
Read more about Neck & back painPhysiotherapy · Parktown North, Johannesburg
Find out why it hurts.
Neck and back pain, sports injuries, post-operative recovery, jaw pain and headaches. Qualified since 2011 — and still convinced that listening properly is the most important part of the job.
Since 2011
Qualified at Stellenbosch University
5.0 on Google
From every patient who has reviewed the practice
Pilates certified
Clinical Pilates led by your own physiotherapist
Home visits
Across Parktown North and the nearby suburbs
Treatment
What is bothering you?
Start with whichever of these sounds most like you. If none of them quite fit, say so when you book — that is a normal way to begin.
Post-operative rehab
The weeks after surgery decide the result.
Read more about Post-operative rehab
TMJ, jaw & headaches
Headaches that start in your jaw, or in your neck.
Read more about TMJ, jaw & headaches
Chest physiotherapy
Help clearing your chest and breathing more easily — adults and children.
Read more about Chest physiotherapy
Rikki is a fantastic physio! The best there is. She really cares about her patients. She has helped me with several issues including chronic headaches, neck pain, a strained hamstring and even TMJ. I’ll go nowhere else.
Rikki has been my physio for nearly 10 years, and she’s the ONLY person I trust with my stubborn neck pain. I haven’t found anyone else who provides the same instant relief and lasting benefit.
Rikki helped me with my ‘tech neck’. So much time sitting in front of the PC, poor sleeping posture and stiffness from work stress. Highly recommend to anyone who is emailing all day.
What to expect
The first appointment is mostly questions
Which sounds like a slow start, and is the reason the rest of it works. Roughly forty-five minutes, and you leave knowing what is wrong.
What you do all day. How you sleep, and on which side. When it started, and what you were doing in the month before that. What makes it worse by Thursday and better by Sunday. Most of the diagnosis is in there, and it is the part that gets rushed almost everywhere, because it is the part that cannot be billed as a technique.
Then the physical assessment: how the area moves and how it should, joint mechanics, muscle length and strength, and a neurological screen where the symptoms warrant one. The point is to find what is actually driving the pain rather than to treat whichever structure is complaining loudest — a hip problem regularly announces itself in a knee, and jaw tension regularly announces itself as a headache.
You will usually be treated in the same session. And you will leave with three things: what Rikki thinks is wrong in plain language, roughly how long it should take, and something specific to do before the next appointment. If physiotherapy is not the right answer for what you have, you will be told that too, and pointed at what is.
Who books, and why
A practice shaped by the suburbs around it
Every area sends its own kind of injury, and after fifteen years the pattern is fairly clear.
From Rosebank and the office nodes: necks, upper backs and the headaches that build through a working week, very often with a jaw being clenched that nobody has thought to examine. From Parkhurst, where a great many people work at a dining table rather than a desk, the same picture arriving about a year sooner.
From Emmarentia, Craighall Park and the Braamfontein Spruit greenbelt: runners and cyclists, and the ankles, Achilles tendons and knees that uneven ground exposes. From Greenside: gym-driven shoulders and lower backs, and hamstrings that keep going in the same place. From Victory Park, teenagers with hockey and rugby injuries that have been played through for a fortnight.
And from Linden and Westcliff, the two things a practice on this side of the city sees constantly: arthritic joints in people who intend to stay in the house they are in, and post-operative knees, hips and shoulders being rehabilitated for a specific staircase, a specific bath and a specific driveway.
The practice
You will see Rikki, every time
This is a single-practitioner practice, which means the person who assesses you is the person who treats you, programmes your exercises and remembers your history without reading it off a screen.
Rikki qualified at Stellenbosch University in 2011 and spent her first eighteen months in practice in Hoedspruit before specialising into sports and orthopaedic rehabilitation. She works closely with several orthopaedic surgeons, and she is a certified Pilates instructor — so the hands-on treatment and the exercise that makes it last come from the same person.
Listening to your patient is the most important tool one can master. Rikki Malherbe
Where Rikki works
Physiotherapy across the northern suburbs
The rooms are on 7th Avenue in Parktown North, a few minutes from Parkhurst, Craighall Park and Rosebank. Home visits reach the same ring of suburbs.
Before you book
The three things people want to know first
You do not need a referral. Physiotherapists in South Africa are first-line practitioners, so you can book directly without seeing a doctor first. A referral is welcome and genuinely useful after surgery, because it arrives with the surgeon’s protocol — but nothing is waiting on one.
Booking is open at eleven at night. Which is when a lot of people decide, because that is when the pain is keeping them awake. Online booking runs around the clock. The rooms open at 08:00 most days and at 07:15 on Tuesdays and Fridays, which suits patients coming from Rosebank or Sandton before work; Fridays close at 13:30.
Medical aid varies more than anyone would like. Most schemes cover physiotherapy, but how much, and from which part of your benefits, differs between schemes and between plan options within the same scheme — and day-to-day benefits have a way of running dry in the last quarter of the year. Ask the practice how billing works for your plan, and ask your scheme what physiotherapy benefit you have left, before the first appointment rather than after it.
If there is an absolute emergency, phone the practice directly.
Questions
Asked before nearly every first appointment
No. Physiotherapists in South Africa are first-line practitioners, which means you can book directly without seeing a doctor first. Plenty of patients do arrive with a referral, particularly after surgery, and that is genuinely useful because it comes with the surgeon’s protocol — but it is not a requirement.
Worth separating from that: some medical aid plans have their own administrative rules about referrals or authorisation before they will pay a claim. That is a scheme rule, not a legal one, and it is worth a call to your plan.
Mostly talking, at first — what you do all day, how you sleep, when it started, what makes it better and worse. Most of the answer is in there, and it is the part that gets rushed almost everywhere. Then a physical assessment: movement, joints, muscle strength and length, and a neurological screen if the symptoms call for one.
You will usually be treated in the same session, and you will leave knowing what Rikki thinks is wrong, in plain language, and roughly how long it should take. Allow about 45 minutes.
Most medical aids cover physiotherapy, but how much and from which part of your benefits varies a great deal between schemes and between plan options within the same scheme. It is often paid from day-to-day benefits or a medical savings account, which is why it is worth checking what you have left before booking, particularly late in the year.
Rikki will confirm exactly how billing works for your plan when you book. Ask before the first appointment, by phone or WhatsApp, so there are no surprises.
It depends on what is wrong, and you will get an honest estimate at the first appointment rather than an open-ended course of treatment. An acutely locked neck often eases substantially inside two or three sessions. Long-standing back pain takes longer and depends partly on what you do between visits. Post-operative rehabilitation follows the surgeon’s protocol and is usually measured in months.
Yes, across Parktown North, Parkhurst, Westcliff, Victory Park, Craighall Park, Rosebank, Linden, Greenside and Emmarentia. They are used most by post-operative patients before they are cleared to drive, older patients, and children needing chest physiotherapy.
Send a WhatsApp with your suburb and what you need, and you will be told what is possible and what it costs before anything is booked. There is more on the home visits page.
Next step
Book an appointment
Online booking is open around the clock, including at eleven at night when the pain is keeping you awake. If you would rather talk it through first, call or send a WhatsApp.
071 491 6759
12 7th Ave, Parktown North