If you are experiencing pain and mobility issues after an injury, you likely need physical therapy. Medications may mask the pain, but they don’t treat the issue.
Your physical therapist can help you avoid surgery and regain your function. They can also teach you ways to prevent future injuries.
What is Physical Therapy?
Physical therapy is a type of health care that improves a patient’s mobility and strength. It combines massage, stretching, strengthening exercises and other modalities.
A PT’s main focus is to help people with pain and other medical conditions move their bodies better. They do this by assessing a patient’s symptoms and determining the best treatment plan.
Your PT may also recommend exercises that you can do at home to further reduce the effects of your condition. Those exercises will depend on the symptoms, the cause of your pain and how long you have had it.
Your therapist will then work with you to achieve your goals. These can include increasing the amount of physical activity you do every day or improving your posture and muscle strength.
How Does Physical Therapy Work?
Physical therapy is a proven, effective treatment that can reduce pain, improve mobility, and prevent injury. It is also an important part of rehabilitation after surgery or a medical problem.
During your first physical therapy session, your therapist will do an evaluation to get to know you and your symptoms. They will ask questions about how you feel, your ability to move and do everyday tasks, your medical history and any other factors that can help them determine a diagnosis.
They will then create a plan of care to address your specific needs and goals. This plan may include exercises, massages, or treatments based on heat, cold, electrical currents or ultrasound.
Using their expertise in anatomy and physiology, physical therapists often evaluate more than one area of the body to find problems that may be contributing to pain. For example, a physical therapist who treats knee pain may also look at the hip and ankle to determine if they are contributing to the discomfort.
What Can I Expect at Physical Therapy?
Physical therapy should be a positive experience that will help you feel better and move more freely. The key is to be open and honest with your physical therapist about your pain or injury, and what you hope to get out of therapy.
At your first visit, the PT will start by performing an evaluation to determine your diagnosis and treatment plan. This involves asking you a series of questions to understand your problem, how it started and what activities are likely causing it.
After the evaluation, your therapist will design a customized plan that focuses on improving your movement and relieving pain. It may include therapeutic exercise, which can build strength and flexibility in the affected area.
Your PT will also teach you proper exercise form so that you can perform these exercises at home. Keeping track of your progress in this way can also give your therapist an idea of how you are responding to your therapy.
Are Physical Therapists Allowed to Diagnose?
Physical Therapists in Buffalo NY are licensed professionals who examine patients and develop a plan of care using treatment techniques to promote the ability to move, reduce pain, restore function, and prevent disability. To do this, they need to be able to diagnose the underlying cause of their patients’ problems.
Most people think of physicians when they hear the word “doctor.” But physical therapists are also doctors, and they can diagnose many diseases and disorders, as well as prescribe treatments for them.
However, most of the time, they do not. They use a different approach to diagnosis than their medical counterparts, which is based on movement dysfunction and functional limitations. This enables them to provide a more comprehensive diagnosis than a physician. The World Health Organization’s ICF model is an excellent tool for physical therapists to use in diagnosing movement impairments and functional limitations. This model allows them to identify a patient’s primary and secondary structural and functional impairments that are contributing to their symptoms.