What Does Physiotherapy Involve?
Would you like to use physiotherapy to maximise your mobility, function, and overall health? Physiotherapists can help achieve all these goals through health and fitness, injury prevention, and physical rehabilitation. How do they achieve that?
They do this through varying treatment and preventative measures, depending on an individual’s specific problems. During the first appointment, the physiotherapist conducts an assessment before determining the best treatment approach. In this post, we’ll be looking at what physiotherapy treatment involves.
What Does Physiotherapy Treatment Involve?
1). Advice and Education
Physiotherapy examines the entire body rather than focusing on the ailing or injured parts. That said, the physiotherapist assesses the entire situation and advises the patient on how they can improve their entire well-being. This can be through maintaining a healthy weight, eating healthy meals, exercising, and many other techniques.
A physiotherapist can further introduce their client to daily activities that can elevate pain or reduce the risk of more injury. For instance, they can teach a patient with back pain how to maintain good posture, appropriate carrying techniques, avoid awkward twists, correct lifting, or the correct way to stretch their body.
2). Exercise and Movement
Many people are familiar with physiotherapy’s major aspects of movement and exercise. These techniques aim at improving a client’s function and mobility. Some of the exercises and movements may involve the following:
- Strength Exercise
These exercises are designed to improve the strength of specific body parts. Such exercises are repeated for a specific period. Strength exercise reduces the risk of injury, delays the onset of some illnesses such as arthritis, and improves a person’s quality of movement.
- Full Body Exercise
These exercises may include walking, squats, swimming, and pushups. These exercises help patients recover from injury or operation that affects their movement. It improves flexibility, strength, and movement and also reduces the chances of the reoccurrence of some illnesses and the likelihood of re-injury.
3). Hydrotherapy
Hydrotherapy, also known as water therapy, helps to ease muscle stress and joint pain. Water therapy may also help to reduce pain, improve mental health, lower arthritis symptoms, and recover from workouts.
4). Mobility Aids
This occurs when a physiotherapist recommends a client move around with the help of aids like a walking stick or crutches for safety, comfort, and pain reduction. Mobility aids assist individuals with problems moving around, giving them more independence and freedom.
5). Manual Therapy
These are techniques where a physiothera[ist uses their hands to massage, mobilize, and manipulate body tissues. Manual therapy helps to improve blood circulation, relieve stiffness and pain, improve mobility of some body parts, increase relation, and enable fluid to drain effectively from the body.
A physiotherapist may use manual therapy to treat various conditions that don’t affect joints, muscles, or bones. For instance, massage may be used to treat anxiety and improve the quality of sleep. Manual techniques may also be used in actually treating some lung conditions.
6). Others
There are other techniques that physiotherapists can use to help clients improve health, ease pain, and prevent the reoccurrence of injuries or ailments. While these techniques lack scientific backing, some have found them effective:
- Ultrasound: This technique involves applying high-frequency sound waves to treat tissue injuries by stimulating cell activity and blood circulation. An ultrasound aims at reducing spasms and pain and speeds up recovery.
- Acupuncture: This is a technique where a physiotherapist inserts very thin needles at strategic body points to promote recovery and reduce pain. Acupuncture is thought to reduce headaches, eye strain, back pain, neck tension, and joint pain and improve energy.
Final Thoughts
Upwell Health Collective in Camberwell offers physiotherapy services that exceed your expectations and the current healthcare standard.
Please get in touch with us at Upwell Health on (03) 8849 9096 or book an appointment today.