What is the success rate of Physical Therapy treatments?
“Through extensive research, statistics widely report physical therapy to be an effective treatment for a number of different conditions.
According to a study published in the journal Health Services Research, initial treatment costs for patients with low back pain were 50% lower when the primary care consultation was followed by a physical therapy referral rather than an advanced imaging referral. In fact, over time, using physical therapy as a first management strategy actually resulted in 72% fewer costs within the first year.
The patients who received physical therapy first were less likely to receive surgery and injections, and they made fewer specialists and emergency department visits within a year of primary consultation.
The authors suggest that advanced imaging may heighten patient and provider concern leading to a push for additional care, whereas physical therapy empowers patients to actively self-manage their condition.”
Fritz JM, Brennan GP, Hunger SJ. Physical Therapy or Advanced Imaging as First Management Strategy Following a New Consultation for Low Back Pain in Primary Care: Associations with Future Health Care Utilization and Charges. Health Serv Res. 2015 Mar 16. doi: 10.1111/1475-6773.12301.
(copied from: https://www.medrisknet.com/statistics-spotlight-physical-therapy-reduces-costs/)
The Science Behind Our Work
The neuromusculoskeletal system is comprised of bones, muscles, tendons, nerves, ligaments, and fascia. Physical therapy, also known as physiotherapy, works to restore optimal function and coordination within all of these systems. This unique and popular health care discipline incorporates biomechanics, exercise, and nerve and muscle physiology to deliver a cost effective, pain free, side effect free solution to many, many ailments. Getting to the root cause and emphasizing proper mechanics, postural awareness, muscle re-education, strength, stabilization, flexibility, and balance training takes patients on a comprehensive journey of fixing their bodies to a point that they can become better than they were before.
Insight Into Injury approaches an injury from a simple perspective that is easily reproduceable once you understand anatomy and functional movement. For example, a patient complains that they have shoulder pain when they raise their arm overhead. At first glance, it might seem like we should dive right in and work on raising their arm overhead. But, in actuality, the best approach would be to stretch out the muscles along the front of the shoulder. From years of experience, 99.9% of the time a tight muscle along the front of the shoulder is the culprit. That tight muscle causes the ball and socket joint to be rotated out of its proper position, and therefore affects its functional ability, causing the pain when the patient elevates their arm overhead… it also causes a strain and friction on the rotator cuff tendon… causes inflammation of the tendons and bursaes… and takes the patient down the wrong path with the (if left unattended) end game leading to a rotator cuff tear requiring surgery. That tight muscle across the front of the chest likely started from chronically slouching and rounding out their shoulders, such as is commonly seen while sitting at a computer or bending over a phone, steering wheel, or the kitchen sink.
Josie offers her insights like this for every joint and muscle and nerve in the body, offering a solution for every injury imaginable. Often times it just takes one simple stretch to get things started in the right direction towards reducing your pain considerably and immediately.
Complementing that one bulls-eye stretch, she provides the complete program that targets everything you need for a full and complete recovery. Referring back to the same shoulder example; in additional to stretching the pectoralis muscles, it would be necessary to strengthen the rotator cuff muscles to encourage proper rotation of the head of the humerus in the socket. The scapular stabilizers must also be engaged and able to fire to their maximum potential. It’s necessary to includes stretches for the muscles that are antagonistic to the ones that elevate the arm. Finally, practicing elevating the arm while maintaining proper scap position – best performed in front of a mirror – is the end game of restoring proper pain free function of the arm.
Knowing how many exercises to do, how long to hold the stretches, how to progress the exercises… that is all part of the skilled physical therapy that you will receive. Josie will walk you through all of this and teach you the simple tricks to gain this skill set as part of your repertoire of self healing and prevention. It’s much more valuable than a pill bottle.
Josie combines her knowledge of what to do, with how to do it, what to look out for, and a healthy dose of encouragement to go along with it. “Having confidence that you’re doing the right thing for yourself, and not doing anything that will make it worse, is a big deal. So many of my former patients have come to me with an injury that has gotten worse while they were waiting around for their appointment. Now we’re dealing with stiffness and compensations on top of the original injury. It’s important to take action right away (as long as it’s the Right action). Waiting for it to feel better is wasting time. Moving it will make it feel better faster”.
