There are few things more frustrating than finding yourself unable to be active. Whether it is due to an injury, illness, aging, or inactivity, when your body no longer lets you do the things you love it can be upsetting, to say the least. Fortunately, for most people, physical therapy offers an effective solution to get you off the sidelines and back to living the life you love!
Getting Off the Sidelines – How Physical Therapy Can Help
A physical therapist can design a custom program to help treat your physical challenges. With a physical therapy program, it is often possible to regain your functioning – and sometimes you can even learn to function better than you did previously. There are many ways that physical therapy can help, including:
1. Help you experience less pain
Pain springs up for a variety of reasons, but it is well-understood that improving mobility and strength can lessen pain. Whatever the injury or condition is, you will probably improve your pain level if you practice the right therapeutic exercises. While it may hurt more initially to move through your exercises, you will typically find that a short time after you complete them you will experience less pain than you did before. A physical therapist can also use tools like ultrasound and electrical stimulation to reduce your pain.
2. Increase your mobility
Doing the things you want to do requires mobility. If your injury or illness reduced your mobility it was likely due to loss of strength and flexibility – things that physical therapy is perfectly designed to improve. Your physical therapist can guide you through exercises that will improve your strength and increase your flexibility so that you can have an easier time walking, standing and moving about. And if you need an assistive device such as a cane or crutches, your physical therapist can help fit them to your body so they are more comfortable and train you in how to use them for maximum benefit.
3. Help you recover after an injury
Some injuries happen suddenly, like slipping and falling, while others happen gradually over time, such as carpal tunnel or tennis elbow. What all injuries have in common is that they damage tissues in your body, which leads to pain and loss of mobility. Given the right treatment, muscles can heal and bones can mend, but you may still be left with issues related to your movement. You may unknowingly learn adaptive movements that help you avoid pain and discomfort, but cause further damage to your body. The end result of an injury can often be that you have troubles with mobility long after the initial damage has healed.
Luckily, physical therapy is extremely useful for regaining mobility following an injury. Physical therapists know how your body is supposed to move for optimal mobility. They can examine your current movements and mobility issues and design a treatment program that will help return your mobility and correct and imbalances in your movements. Physical therapy will help you recover more quickly and more thoroughly from an injury than you would on your own.
4. Regain cardiovascular strength
Even if your muscles, joints and bones are healed, you may find that your cardiovascular health is lacking after being stuck in bed for an extended period of time. Physical therapy can help you to steadily improve your cardiovascular health so that your heart and lungs can keep up with your body and your lifestyle.
Learn More About Physical Therapy Today!
Let us help you get back on your feet and back in the race. Please contact Rising Sun PT today to learn more about our options for physical therapy!
