Physiotherapy is a key part of recovery from injuries and illness. It involves doing exercises to improve movement, strength and coordination.
Often the term physical therapy is confused with rehabilitation. However, there are important differences. Physiotherapy involves manual, hands-on therapy including stretches, massages and other techniques. It also uses electrotherapy and heat/cold treatments.
Pain Relief
Physical therapy is the best non-invasive treatment to alleviate pain, ease stiff joints and increase muscle strength around injured or weakened areas of your body. It also helps prevent re-injury and improves your quality of life.
Your physiotherapist can provide a wide range of treatments to help relieve your pain, such as hot and cold therapy, electrical stimulation or massages. They may also use direct manipulation to improve your mobility by loosening fibrous areas of tissue and improving the alignment of bones or joints.
Physiotherapy has been proven to reduce chronic pain and can even allow you to decrease the amount of pain medication that you take, with your doctor’s approval of course. Unlike pain-relieving medications that can have dangerous side effects, a comprehensive physiotherapy plan will address the underlying cause of your pain rather than just masking the symptoms.
A physical therapist will watch the way that you move when performing simple tasks, like walking or lifting, to identify any problems with your movement patterns that could be contributing to your pain. They will then teach you how to make changes to your posture and technique, which can help alleviate your pain. They might also recommend hypnosis or cognitive-behavioral therapy, which have been found to be effective in treating chronic pain patients.
Strengthening
Using advanced hands-on manual techniques, physical therapists assess your condition and create a treatment plan that includes a variety of methods designed to improve your overall wellness. These include stretches, exercises, retraining and massage therapy. They can also advise you on activities to do at home between sessions.
Physiotherapy can help you regain your ability to move, and can be combined with other treatments such as surgery or other forms of rehabilitation. The extent to which your health issue limits your ability to move depends on what type of disability you have and the cause of that limitation.
The physiotherapist can teach you to perform core strengthening exercises that focus on the transversus abdominis, quadratus lumborum, and multifidi muscles. Increasing the strength of these muscles increases intra-abdominal pressure that acts as a natural corset protecting your spine and decreasing pain.
The physiotherapist can then introduce gait and balance drills and proprioceptive training to improve your coordination, thereby reducing the risk of falls. They may also use water-based exercises in which the buoyancy of the water reduces strain on joints and muscles. They can also introduce modalities such as heat or cold to relieve inflammation and relax the soft tissue. They can also use ultrasound to help with soft tissue swelling. They can also perform manual manipulations to improve the mobility of stiff or locked joints.
Restoring Range of Motion
Physiotherapy can help you regain the mobility and function you lost due to an injury or illness. It can also improve symptoms of illnesses like arthritis, back pain, and sciatica. It can even treat speech problems like dysphasia, which is a loss of the ability to speak correctly.
Physical therapy is used in hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and physiotherapy clinics. It uses techniques such as massage, exercise, heat and cold treatments, and stretching to enhance your quality of life. It’s also sometimes called rehabilitative therapy or manual therapy.
The main role of a physical therapist is to evaluate and diagnose patients with musculoskeletal problems. They can then develop a plan of treatment and monitor the patient’s progress.
They may use a variety of manual treatment methods including stretching, gait training, balance drills and therapeutic exercises to help patients regain their mobility. In addition to this, a physical therapist can also help patients with muscle strengthening using various techniques. One of these is blood flow restriction therapy, which involves wrapping a cuff around an injured limb to restrict blood flow and encourage healing.
Physiotherapy can help with many different types of injuries and illnesses, from back pain to sprains and broken bones. It can also help with illnesses like diabetes and cancer, and it’s often recommended after surgery. For people who have had a stroke, physical therapy can help them recover the function of their legs and other body parts.
Preventing Recurrence
Whether you have an injury that is causing you pain, or simply want to get fitter, a physiotherapist can help. They will take a holistic approach, looking at what is contributing to your problem and how it can be prevented in the future. They will also advise on lifestyle changes that may be beneficial.
Physiotherapy is a non-invasive treatment and is an excellent alternative to surgery or medication. It can also help people who have had a stroke and are struggling to regain function. Many statutory health insurers cover the cost of physical therapy.
At Forde Clinic our approach to physiotherapy is centred around manual therapy. This includes mobilisation and manipulation of joints, nerves and muscles to facilitate healing and prevent recurrence. Your therapist will also show you how to maintain the corrections in your posture and movements. This is very important as spinal problems have a high incidence of recurrence often with increased severity.
Having a nagging ache or pain is one thing, but having a chronic condition like arthritis or fibromyalgia can be debilitating. There is no reason to suffer through it. There are a variety of options available, from physiotherapy to personal training and fitness centres that focus on rehabilitation. There is an increasing trend for health-care professionals to work toward prevention rather than treating the symptom of an injury.
