Physical therapy is not merely exercising, but a treatment tailored to relieve the pain from an injury, illness or bad posture with a special knack. Physical therapy also known as functional rehabilitation helps the patient maintain and improve strength, flexibility and stamina apart from just pain relief. In clinics like Don Kelly Pain Relief, Charleville, the physical therapist aims at providing customized treatment by first performing a thorough assessment of the patient. There are different methods of treatment with physical therapy that are mentioned below.
Manual Therapy – The treatment is performed manually using hands on the patients. It helps relaxing the muscles, increases flexibility and a pain reliever especially for an injury. The therapy involves massage around the area of pain where pressure is applied to the tissues of the body to increase blood flow and ease out the pain. Therapists also use measured movements like a stretch, pull, twist or pressure applied to the point to relieve tight tissues and increase flexibility.
Ice/Heat application – Cold or heat application can help in treating the injury effectively. Injuries like muscle spasms and stiff muscles are usually treated with heat application. Heat application improves blood circulation and relaxes the soft tissues, thus decreases the pain. Cold or ice application is used to treat swelling and inflammation of tissues from an injury.
Ultrasound Therapy-Ultrasound therapy is a non-invasive one where sound waves are used to generate heat deep under the tissues to loosen them and promote blood circulation. The method is useful for treating tendon, muscle, ligament and joint problems due to injury or as a relaxant before exercise.
Electrical Stimulation – Electrical stimulation involves passing painless electric current to specific nerves through the patient’s skin. Muscular movement is restored to some extent in case of a traumatic injury. It also helps in reducing pain.
Exercise – The most important methods of treatment using physical therapy is exercises. In physical therapy, exercises are tailored to suit the patient’s level of injury or pain. Exercises are handpicked to strengthen the tissues, improve balance, co-ordination, flexibility to relieve pain and stiffness in the muscles. Physical therapists may choose to perform passive therapies like ice/heat application, ultrasound and other methods to improve blood circulation and then put the patient on a suitable exercise regime. The exercises aim mainly at relieving the pain caused due to an injury, underlying illness or help prevent future problems.
Education – Patients are taught about the right posture and how to do one’s daily jobs safely. A wrong posture can put much stress on the muscles around the neck, shoulder, back and can cause a lot of pain. The Patient is educated on basic skills of how to walk, sit, and carry and others to avoid injury or pain.
It is always better to know about the methods used by physical therapists before starting the treatment. Regular interaction with the therapist is very important as they are the ones who decide the course of treatment based on the level of pain and injury.
