New Year, No New Pain! How Physiotherapy Can Help You.
“Physiotherapists are primary health care professionals with a significant role in health promotion and treatment of injury and disease.”
— Canadian Physiotherapy Association
Physiotherapists are health care providers that are trained in movement and the body, and aim to reduce symptoms and improve function of their patients. Physiotherapists work with a wide range of conditions, including injuries, chronic conditions, stroke, post-surgical recovery, pelvic health, paediatrics, lung problems, and more. You may wonder if you would benefit from seeing a physiotherapist. Here are some benefits of physiotherapy, and ways that you can feel better in the New Year!
Reduce Pain
Pain can occur for a multitude of reasons, so a major part of physiotherapy is assessing your pain and determining the cause. Causes of pain could include arthritis, injury, chronic pain, improper movement, deformities, inflammation, and more. Performing a detailed assessment is one way to determine the cause of you pain, to ensure your treatment is effective and targeted towards the root problem.
Improve Function
As we perform our daily activities, sometimes our bodies can prevent us from performing them to the best of our abilities. This could be due to reduced mobility, so we aren’t able to get into comfortable positions to perform the activities. It could also be due to reduced strength or muscle endurance, which means we can’t perform the activities as long as we would like, or lift/move what we need to. Addressing these limitations can help you improve your day to day activities.
Headaches
Headaches can fall into two categories, primary and secondary headaches. Primary headaches include migraines, tension headaches, and cluster headaches. Secondary headaches occur as a result of something else, such as TMD (jaw issues), trauma, or neck problems. Addressing the cause of the headaches can improve the symptoms, and treatment could include cervical exercises, stretches, postural exercises, or manual therapy.
Sport Performance
Performing at your best includes pain free movement, injury prevention, addressing strength imbalances, and psychological readiness. Through functional movement screens and assessing readiness to return to sport, physiotherapists can work with you to ensure you are performing your best. This plays a major role when returning to sport after injury, however athletes could have improper technique or movement patterns that make them more susceptible to injury. Injury prevention for athletes can play a major role in performance and ensuring you don’t miss out on your season.
Avoid Surgery
If you are awaiting surgery, physiotherapy could potentially help you put off the need for surgery by reducing your pain and improving function. Joint replacements are performed when all other non-surgical options have been considered. Physiotherapy may be one way to avoid joint replacement, however this individual to each patient. Even if you are due for surgery, doing physiotherapy before surgery can help improve post surgical outcomes and set you up for success after your surgery.
Recover from Injury
Physiotherapists are trained to assess injuries, imbalances, range of motion and functional abilities. They can help walk you through your injury and provide treatment options that can assist in your healing and recovery to activity. Activity modification and return to sport plans are two ways your physiotherapist can help you adjust your day to day activities and sports to avoid reinjury.
Reduce Falls and Improve Balance
Falls are the leading cause of injury among older adults in Canada, and addressing balance issues can play an important role of keeping you healthy and active. By focusing on balance and task oriented walking, we can prevent falls for various people, including older adults, post stroke patients, or any people with balance issues.
Incontinence
Urinary stress incontinence is a condition that commonly affects women, but can also affect men. Physiotherapy can help reduce incontinence by working with you to teach you proper pelvic floor muscle contraction. This is a common issue after having children, and working with a physiotherapist can help improve quality of life by reducing incontinence.
If you think you would benefit in any of these areas, book in with us! Not sure if you would benefit from physiotherapy? Send us an email or give us a call, and we can walk you through it!
