Therapists always set up functional goals for patients that are based on what the patient says they need to be able to do. Functional goals are things like walking >30mins, standing to do the dishes without back pain increasing, going up & down stairs one leg after the other without the knee hurting…stuff like that. Patients are more often to do their PT program when they are in pain, since pain is a good reminder and motivator to do the exercises. When they feel better, they’re likely doing more activities, and have less time to do the program as often as they should, or sometime at all. This means that they did reduce their pain, maybe get rid of it entirely, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they completely fixed the dysfunction. And that means the injury could come back, or rear its ugly head in a slightly different form. (for example: your hip pain stopped, but years later you developed back pain). Even with these statistical facts we are still helping a lot of people.
To help with this decline of compliance, online programs are the perfect solution. You don’t have the time to go to the doctors office, but you could squeeze in 5 minutes of exercises – especially when you can do them when you’re taking a quick breather on the couch, or when you’re in the shower. And putting in that extra time, doing the full program to completion, means you will have complete recovery with long terms results.
Even when your insurance benefits are used up, even if you don’t want to leave the house, if you prefer to do your exercises first thing in the morning or right before bed (when no clinics are open), you can still pursue your goals. With Insight Into Injury you own the program! You can do it any time you want, as many times as you want. Online sessions make this possible.
Arthritis
“Bone on bone” is what people often associate arthritis with. Tight muscles cause those bones to squeeze together more. Weakness and muscle imbalance causes dysfunction as the joint moves, allowing perhaps one side of the joint to collapse and rub together more. A properly designed physical therapy program focusing on flexibility and equal strength will ease the symptoms associated with arthritis.
Muscle Strains
Muscle strains are typically less about muscle tearing, and more about the inflammation that occurs as it tries to recover. That inflammation can cause pain and stiffness. PT will teach you the correct movements to do starting right away after a muscle strain. You will be assured to not make the injury worse, but, instead, you’ll be flushing out the inflammation that is actually causing your symptoms. Movement will encourage a much faster recovery.
Inflammation
Inflammation can be reduced with the right kinds of movements. Physical therapy will teach you how to avoid aggravating your symptoms while creating a healing environment of good circulation. It’s all the about the right combination of slow movements with holds at end range of movement, and fluid repetitive movements in a small pain free range of movement.
Performance
Though physical therapy doesn’t boast about teaching specialize skills for sports, they are absolutely known for assisting improved sports performance. From identifying a hidden weakness that is slowing you down, to taking care of the “eh, it goes away once I’m warm” disaster potential, physical therapy can get rid of the glitches in your movements so that you can be the athlete you can be.
According to the boneandjointburden.org
- 18% of all doctors visits are because of a musculoskeletal disorder, meaning because of something wrong with their muscles, joints, or bones.
- Musculoskeletal disorders affect more than 50% of people over the age of 18 at some point in their life, and over 75% of people over 65yrs old.
- more than 50% of disabling conditions are due to problems of the musculoskeletal system.
Think of that. If someone has diabetes, they can probably still go to work everyday. If someone has moderate pain in their back, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t be able to tolerate going to work, especially depending on what their job is.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is quoted in an article by WebPt: “In 2011, only about 11.7 million adults took advantage of outpatient physical therapy services (according to this resource), which means only 9.58% of the people who could have benefited from our services ever received them. Even if these numbers have positively shifted over the past several years, it’s still safe to say that we have a ways to go before we realize our potential as the practitioner of choice for patients with musculoskeletal injuries. We must continue (and dare I say, double down) our efforts to increase consumer adoption—and that means we have to expand our marketing efforts to target potential patients directly.”
So, Insight Into Injury, and all the content I’ve created for you on this website, is my effort to double down and make sure this information gets in the hands of as many people as possible. I feel that everyone deserves the best chance to live a pain free life. So i want to share all of this with you. All the information and experience that I’ve gathered over 20+years as a physical therapist, as an athlete, as a family member to those aging die hard weekend warriors, I’ve packed into this website is for you and your family and friends. Please, share this site with them! Invite a workout buddy. Email me to let me know what else you want to learn about. And be sure to subscribe to my mailing list so that you’ll be the first to know when I’ve added new content.
Pain free people get better sleep, have regulated moods, are more productive, successful and happy. Join the Club!
Typically insurance companies will reimburse therapists for 7-10 therapy sessions.
That could be enough if the patient was completely onboard with their “home exercise program”. In a perfect situation the patient has a physical therapy appointment within days of their injury, before any secondary issues arise because of compensations. The therapist immediately identifies the root of the problems and implements some easy exercises. The patient works on them, and they progress. They return to the therapist and get additional exercises and are encouraged to progress them; the therapist encourages the patient to progress at the right rate. The patient again works on their program at home, and they progress. Once the patient realizes the importance of doing the exercises, both by encouragement from the PT’s experience and because they can actually see the positive change happening in their bodies, then they continue on their own, gradually doing more repetitions as they get stronger, or gradually going deeper in their stretches as they get more flexible. Once all the symptoms are gone, then they return to the therapist for another assessment to make sure there are no hidden deficits that would lead to an injury in the future. The body wants to go into equilibrium which is a state where it is symmetrical and unlikely to be injured form any repetitive strain. But since our lives are often not symmetrical, (getting in/out of the driver side door of the car more times than in/out of the passenger side. Rolling out of the same side of the bed everyday. The dryer is to the right of the wash machine so that’s the way our body turns. Sitting and leaning against the same side of the couch… ), we need to constantly be doing mini tune ups to keep things in that healthy balance. Physical therapists can recognize these subtle issues, and guide you to fix them and teach you how to keep an eye on things.
If you’re the sort of person that can understand and believe in this concept. If you’re self motivated and like the feeling of feeling well. You will do very very well with the concepts here in Insight Into Injury.
I practice what I preach, and the proof is in the pudding.
Check back for a blog post and Facebook post of me at 43 doing the worm, jumping on the trampoline, plyometrics, jump roping, burpees, and playing beach volleyball.
Here’s the secret sauce: I dedicate to doing stretching, sit ups, planks, bridging, getting up from the computer at minimum every 30mins to stretch. I make healthy eating choices every chance I get.
Check out some success stories under the testimonial tab or through this button here.