A physical therapist helps you recover from accidents or illnesses that alter the way you move your body. It can be frustrating and can impair how you connect with your family and loved ones. This feeling makes it more challenging to complete typical daily tasks as independently as you would like.
Many people wonder if they are eligible for physical therapy or if physical therapy is the best option for their ailment. However, for physical therapists, there is a simple answer to this question: Most people can significantly benefit from physical therapy, with varying conditions from as simple as an ankle sprain to a more complex one that is a neurological disorder. Physical therapy may still be beneficial even without injuries and special conditions. Physical therapists are considered movement experts that can help you prevent additional injuries or illnesses. Let us discuss when to know if you already need a physical therapist.
What is Physical Therapy?
Some in-home physical therapists are highly trained and guide you through your recovery. A common misconception surrounding physical therapists remains afloat: they are only romanticized therapists who can only do massages. However, nothing beats the truth. Physical therapists undergo specialized training backed up by high-level education that helps them diagnose and address various issues. Physical therapists are individuals specially trained to locate muscle trauma, mobility dysfunction quickly and eventually solve rehabilitation problems and increase independence – the best in the field of physical therapy. Providing in-home physical therapy services allows people to get the professional help they need from only the best and top-tier therapists.
Physical therapists are the best in their chosen field as they gain years of service in providing quality in-home care. With this, you can be assured that physical therapists provide the best, most safe, and comfortable treatment. This promise perfectly suits you well as you enjoy the comforts and the privacy of your own home, letting you adapt to an exact environment allowing optimal recovery. Providing specialized treatments prescribed by a physician, therapists can implement therapeutic activities and exercises related to specific function loss. They can also utilize adaptive equipment and techniques that aid in their patient’s independence and rehabilitation. A caring and skilled physical therapist can help you quickly regain your mobility, improve your strength, and gain the freedom you want back.
When to Require a Physical Therapist
Physical therapists are trained to work in numerous settings. You can usually find them in hospitals, nursing facilities, and sports clinics. Physical therapists can even come to your home after having an injury. They deal with people across lifespans as well, from womb to tomb, as they say.
Physical therapy is conservative treatment and addresses management, healing, and prevention of injuries and disabilities. It uses non-invasive and non-medical tools to help improve total body function.
A physical therapist’s primary focus is to relieve pain, promote healing, restore functions and movement, and facilitate adaptation associated with injuries. Therapies also focus on ergonomics or body mechanics training, fitness, and wellness. With that, physical therapy can play certain functions in most people’s lives. Regardless of age, those who have a problem with normal mobility may benefit from the help of a physical therapist as they return to their optimal function.
Now, here is a list of the most common reasons to require physical therapy:
- Arthritis (one or multiple joints)
- Bowel or bladder incontinency
- Cancer recovery
- Cardiac rehabilitation
- Chronic fatigue and feebleness
- Joint muscle sprains and strains
- Fitness and wellness education (weight loss, osteoporosis prevention)
- Fractures and other orthopedic issues
- Knee, ankle, and foot concerns
- Neck and lower back pain
- Neuro-rehabilitation (post-stroke, injuries of the head or spinal cord)
- Pre- and post-partum programs
- Pre- and post-surgical conditioning and strengthening
- Problems with equilibrium (balance or mobility)
- Respiratory problems or poor cardiovascular strength
- Shoulder, arm, hand, and wrist problems (carpal tunnel syndrome, shoulder tendonitis)
- Sports-related injuries
- Work-related injuries (repetitive motion injuries, slip, fall accidents, and other trauma)
- Wound care (diabetic wounds, non-healing traumatic or post-surgical wounds)
This list includes only some of the most common ones. Best discuss your options with your physician if you still have confusion about needing physical therapy or not. Doctors will be able to guide you in the right direction.
The Most Important Types of Physical Therapy
In-home physical therapists aren’t just there for convenience; they are also a form of transformative treatment that significantly improves their patient’s quality of life and ability to do daily activities. With that being said, no harm results in knowing the sort of physical therapy you are getting yourself into as your physical therapist manages the different treatment recommendation plans after your initial consultation. Now, we have listed some of the essential physical therapies one can invest in and why you might potentially need these added to your future in-home physical therapy appointments.
- Vestibular Rehabilitation
A factor that is mainly taken for granted most of the time, our balance only gets attention when it suddenly renders you helpless without it entirely. Balance is vital in terms of your everyday activities, especially when you’re in the practice of coming across chairs. Vestibular-based physical therapy focuses on bringing balance back to you and putting you back in charge of your life. This rehabilitation method is designed for chronic dizziness and vertigo, efficiently helping reestablish your life back in comfort.
- Geriatric Therapy
We are all aware that as we get older, specific changes come, which are mostly unavoidable. Muscles and the skeleton of the body begin to ache more and more. They become more easily tired from movements and activities very simple before. As we move forward with our lives, lousy habit development may not have promoted muscle and skeleton health as we age, and now it’s finally biting us back. Geriatric therapy helps adjust those minor tweaks and quirks our muscles already have that affect the whole body, eventually turning into chronic pain. Conquer those years of accidental abuse through measured and calculated physical therapy designed to cater to all of your individual needs.
- Orthopedic Physical Therapy
Orthopedic therapy is a specialized constructed therapy that helps regain muscle strength after having injuries or surgery. This physical therapy method quickly allows old wounds that we have never addressed. In addition, it also addresses fresh injuries that need healing and strengthening. This method typically employs targeted exercises to build back your initial strength slowly, eventually helping enhance the overall muscle strength in that area.
- Neurological Therapies
This method primarily includes spinal cord injuries, but it can also have help recoveries from strokes, diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, brain injuries, cerebral palsy, and even multiple sclerosis. These are all chronic ailments, so it is more likely to lessen the effects of the conditions on your day-to-day lives rather than completely curing the issue. In addition, it also improves your motor functions and provides a host of other benefits. This therapy typically begins by learning and repeating simple exercises of therapeutic value, developing into more complicated treatments that build on the continued progress.
Require a Physical Therapist – NOW!
If you need help today, go ahead and seek the service of physical therapy. It can make or break the life you want to have, so don’t have reservations o things that would benefit you. With physical therapists, enjoy life like how you want it without any insecurities and limitations.
Are you in need of help through physical therapy? Worry no more! Our amazing friends from Nova Home Health Care are here to help. Visit them now!