Physical Fitness & Physiotherapy

Physical rehabilitation at Action Chiropractic & Rehab focuses on each patient’s specific needs, regarding injuries, current conditioning, and necessary treatment. Our staff creates personalized rehabilitation programs, ones that focus on precise areas unique to each patient, to ensure that the appropriate exercise is being applied.

Physical-rehab and therapy is commonly referred to as physiotherapy, which is a treatment for helping patients get back to full movement and physical capability. Over time, our body begins to deteriorate, causing damage to bones, joints, muscles, tissue, and organs; but we can slow this process by exercising and eating healthier foods. Whether you have pain caused from aging, disease, or an accident, our physiotherapy techniques will focus on mending and restoring your body back to optimal health.

A Physical Therapy Visit to Action Chiropractic & Rehab

Every once in awhile, you might end up being sent for physical therapy. Since not everyone goes, even when directed by a physician, it pretty much means many people might not have an idea of what a typical physical therapy session might be like. I thought I’d share this with you, as someone who has gone for physical therapy a few different times.

No matter whether it’s your first visit or your 10th visit, the first thing you’ll do each time is answer the question of the degree of pain you’re in. You’ll either get the 1-5 scale or the 1-10 scale. The higher the number, the more pain you’re in. There will be some other evaluation questions as well. You’ll get a quick physical exam to determine what might be causing your pain, or if you’ve been before to see if there have been any changes.

The next thing you’ll get is either heat or cold. The strange thing here is that, eventually, both will feel very hot. Heat is used to loosen things up; cold is used to try to reduce swelling and pain. With an ice pack, or in some cases and actual large bag of ice, especially for backs, you’ll experience extreme cold initially, but within a couple of minutes your body responds and starts generating a lot of heat, which starts melting the ice. You’ll either start feeling kind of hot yourself of numb.

That goes on for about 10 or 15 minutes, before it’s time for your next step. It’s time to do some kind of work. You’ll either do some work on the table, which might include stretching exercises of different types, or be taken to another area where you’ll be put on some kind of exercise machine and told what to do. Your therapist won’t stay with you unless you’re in a critical state, which means they’ll tell you what to do then leave you for a few minutes and go to work with someone else. You’ll do a few machines and a few stretching or strength building types of exercises, but it’s all part of the same therapeutic plan.

At the end of those sessions, your therapist will evaluate you again. With me, it seemed that, at least one time, my back issue was caused by one of my legs being out of alignment. So, the exercises I was doing were geared towards getting my legs in alignment, and building up the muscles around it to keep it in place.

At the end of your therapeutic treatments, hopefully you’ll be on your way to recovery. Almost no one is completely cured, but you’re given a set of exercises to continue working on. If you’re still critical, your insurance company may authorize more treatments. But physical therapy overall is pretty harmless, and you do more of the work. If you’re lucky, every once in awhile you’ll also get a short massage. This isn’t the same type of massage you’ll pay an hour for, but after you’ve done all that work, it will feel really good.