The goal of physical therapy is to make activities and daily tasks easier, so in a broad sense, it improves quality of life. 

What Will Physical Therapy Include?

Physical therapy (PT) will often include exercises like stretching, weight lifting, walking, or core strengthening. It’s a conservative treatment often focused on restoring function. Using advice from a physician, the physical therapist will design a personal treatment plan and monitor progress along the way.

Many Benefits of Physical Therapy

Physical therapy plays an important role in treating people of all ages and all abilities. The therapists are experts in identifying and treating many different types of problems.

Recovering from an Injury

To say an injury to a part of your body can impact quality of life is an understatement. Physical therapy can treat sports-related or other injuries, allowing you to return to your favorite activity more quickly and in a safer manner. Physical therapists can help you design programs to hopefully prevent the same injury from happening again.

Improving Motion, Mobility, and Balance

No matter what your age, if you’re having trouble standing, walking, or moving, physical therapy can help. You’ll probably learn stretching and strengthening exercises or get a proper fitting for a cane, crutches, or other types of assistive devices to help restore mobility.

Physical therapy can also help improve balance and prevent falls. Physical therapists will usually screen new patients for fall risk and provide exercises to challenge balance in a safe way. Therapists can also teach you exercises to improve coordination and can treat some problems caused by a patient’s vestibular system, which controls balance. Specific maneuvers can sometimes reduce or eliminate dizziness or vertigo.

Reducing Pain

Treatments like ultrasound, taping, electrical stimulation, and others can help relieve pain and restore joint and muscle function. Getting things back to normal can often keep pain from returning. PT to reduce pain can also help some patients avoid the use of painkillers which sometimes include addictive opioids.

Avoiding Surgery

Since physical therapy can often improve mobility and reduce pain, sometimes patients can avoid surgery. The therapy itself can sometimes fix the problem, eliminating the need for a surgical repair. Even if surgery still happens, the area will be stronger and in better shape before the operation, so recovery could be faster.

Managing Issues That Come with Age

As we get older, our joints can deteriorate and we can develop conditions like arthritis. Stiff joints can get worse without movement and can cause more pain. Physical therapy can get the joints moving in a proper way and help avoid further damage. Building up the muscles surrounding the joint is also important because stronger muscles provide more stability for a weak joint.

Disease and Ailment Management

Physical therapy can help manage a variety of diseases and ailments including diabetes, vascular conditions, heart disease, and lung disease.

Exercise can help control blood sugar and physical therapists can teach proper technique. They can also help diabetic patients with sensation loss in feet and legs learn proper foot care to hopefully prevent further problems.

For heart and lung disease, physical therapy can help strengthen and condition the body. It’s also good for other health conditions.

Are you ready to try physical therapy? If you need to know where to start, look no further than Health Star Clinic. Contact us today for a free consultation.