Human beings have been using various tools and techniques to get rid of multiple diseases and ailments. Physiotherapy is also a technique that relieves severe pain from an accident, injury, or surgery. The physiotherapist uses the different physical approaches to promote, maintain, and restore the patients’ physical, psychological, and social well-being. Movement is always the core of physical therapy.
Table of Contents
What is Physiotherapy?
Physiotherapy, also known as physical therapy or kinesiotherapy, is a healthcare profession that maximizes human beings’ biological potential through the maintenance and restoration of the body’s compromised parts. It normalizes patients’ life by treatment through physical rehabilitation, injury prevention, and health and fitness. Physiotherapy is the science of movement that helps pinpoint the root cause of an injury and its treatment. Assessment and diagnosis are vital stages in the restoration of motion and function in a patient affected by illness, injury, or disability.
Who is a Physiotherapist?
Physiotherapists are physiotherapy experts working in patients’ homes, healthcare facilities, or full-fledged physiotherapy centers. Physiotherapists can help at any stage of life when aging, injury, diseases, conditions, and environmental factors threaten body movements and functions. Physiotherapists have different titles worldwide but are required to undertake a comprehensive examination, evaluate their findings, formulate a diagnosis and prognosis plan. They have to provide consultation within their expertise, implement intervention programs, and determine their outcomes. They use different tools to get maximum out of the patients’ body, focusing on everyday movements like walking, eating, and bathing.
When should I see a Physiotherapist?
You should always consult a physiotherapist if disease, injury, or surgery affect how your body functions every day. Physiotherapists work both on prevention and rehabilitation. They possess the required qualification and experience to assess the root cause of pain and then treat it using various tools and techniques. Usually, patients go for physiotherapy on their doctors’ recommendations after trauma, surgery, heart attack, and stroke.
What problems do physiotherapists treat?
Physiotherapists try to normalize patients’ lives, focusing on their everyday movements like walking, eating, and bathing. Following are the problems that physiotherapists can treat.
- Problems in the neck and back arising from muscles and skeleton
- Treats bones, joints, muscles, and ligaments such as arthritis and after-effects of amputation
- Asthma or lungs problems
- Partial or complete disability from trauma and heart attack
- In females, problems arising after childbirth like pelvic issues and bladder and bowel impairments
- Loss of mobility due to trauma to the spine and brain. Sometimes, diseases like multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s cause partial or complete disability.
- Fatigue, pain, swelling, stiffness, and loss of muscle strength arising from the treatment of diseases like cancer and palliative care.
Which are the tools and techniques that a Physiotherapist uses?
Depending on the patients’ needs, physiotherapists use different tools for physical therapy. The use of the right kind of tools is mandatory to get desired results. However, always keep in mind to use sturdy material that can withstand the regular usage of the devices. The following are some of the most commonly used physiotherapy tools.
These devices are ideal for patients losing their muscle mass and growth during an accident or trauma. The devices come in different designs and colors, allowing them to customize their exercises according to their needs. Occupational therapy patients prefer using it because they can assist with flexibility by applying resistance during various stretching exercises.
Exercise balls are other modern but practical physiotherapy tools that promote balance and coordination by providing different stretching exercises. Exercise balls of different colors and shapes are available that give you enough control over how your patients improve their health during rehabilitation plans. General design balls offer patients a full range of exercise options. Still, specific sizes and shapes of balls are helpful for the rehabilitation of particular parts.
This tool is helpful for muscle growth and fights off muscular atrophy. Primarily, physiotherapists recommend using this tool after severe injury or accident. An experienced physiotherapist uses an electrical muscle stimulator to rebuild fundamental tone and strength in muscles that have gone due to accident or injury. However, physiotherapists use this tool when they cannot take traditional exercises due to extreme weakness or pain. Different machines offer various stimulation points.
Hot water bathing is helpful in many ways. Many specialists use swimming pool techniques to help their patients regain muscle mass and strength. Hydrotherapy is always beneficial in warm water because it improves blood circulation and relaxes tense muscles. Patients suffering from spinal cord injury, arthritis, and stroke regain their complete movement through hydrotherapy.
Ultrasound therapy is becoming popular with every passing day because it helps identify areas with poor blood flow, cracks, and fractures. Modern ultrasonic equipment can help physical therapists to treat tightness or contracture of joints, ligament injuries, frozen shoulders, strains and tears of muscles, tendonitis, and bursitis.
Treatment tables are an integral part of physical rehabilitation centers because they help patients sit in various positions. Occupational therapy and rehabilitation centers have sturdy tables with enough padding to avoid extra stress on the patients’ muscles.
Hot and cold packs are helpful in vasodilation and vasoconstriction of blood vessels in patients. This equipment not only controls blood circulation but also helps sore muscles relax.
Most modern physiotherapy centers use this valuable equipment to help their patients recover from leg, foot, and ankle injuries. Exercising bikes also help to build strength and stamina throughout the lower body parts. Some doctors recommend using static cycles because they help all age groups, improve lumbar and thoracic flexion, and help maintain stable apposition.
Why is physiotherapy helpful?
A physiotherapist can help you understand what happened to your joint, muscle, or any body part due to accident, trauma, or treatment of other diseases. Physical therapy can be helpful in the following ways.
Manage your pain
Accidents, injuries, or diseases can cause pain in particular body parts or the whole body. Medication alone cannot provide proper relief. Therefore, specialists recommend physiotherapy at some rehabilitation centers. Kinesiotherapy treats patients along with medication using different tools and equipment. Ice packs, hot packs, exercising tables, cycles, and many other physiotherapy tools provide soothing relief from pain. Your specialist recommends graded exercises and upgrades them gradually. Most of these exercises rebuild your muscles and restore their strength. Acupuncture, massages, and electrotherapy are among the most commonly used tools and techniques.
Improves fitness
Physical therapy is vital to regaining fitness that requires you to remain active during the treatment cycle. Here, it is pertinent to mention that many patients are afraid to take physiotherapy exercises. They think that it will increase their pain. They neglect the fact that their muscles and joints need regular movement. Muscles around joints become weaker if the patients do not move joints. Physical therapy specialist recommends taking specific exercises to keep joints moving to increase general fitness.
Stretching, strengthening, and mobilizing.
Injuries, accidents, and sometimes treatment to various diseases cause muscle stiffness. The day-to-day activities of the patients get disturbed due to increasing muscle weakness. Here, once again, physiotherapy is a suitable way to restore your daily routine. Physical therapy specialists assess the muscles strength and the range of movement of joints and recommend various tools and techniques to employ. It can help patients regain coordination, strength, balance, endurance, and flexibility.
What are the types of physiotherapy?
Depending on different manual and exercise-based techniques, we can divide physiotherapy into various types. These are:
- Sports physiotherapy
- Rehabilitation and pain management
- Musculoskeletal physiotherapy
- Vestibular rehabilitation
- Pediatric physiotherapy
- Neurological physiotherapy, and
- Hydrotherapy
Out of all these types, hydrotherapy is the most important that uses water as a primary tool. Swimming pools are the most prominent form of aqua therapy. The experts recommend using warm water that helps in flexibility, coordination, overall movement, limb strength, stress reduction, relaxation, enhancement of aerobic capacity. It is a medical tool, and many healthcare facilities offer insured services. Hydrotherapy is also helpful in many ways:
- Warm water usage in it loosens and relaxes the muscles and improves blood circulation. Improved blood circulation boosts the recovery rate.
- Hydrostatic pressure and buoyancy help the muscles to relax while maintaining their movement.
- It improves respiration because it speeds up the supply of oxygen-rich blood to various body parts.
- Water is viscous that makes the movement manageable.
Sports injuries and physiotherapy
Sports injuries are common nowadays, and both professional and amateur players suffer from these. Physiotherapy, along with medication, is necessary to treat chronic pain in the musculoskeletal system. The most common sports injuries are hamstring damage, knee injury, groin pull, ankle sprains, shin splints, stress fracture, back pain, and carpal tunnel syndrome.
Sports rehabilitators treat these issues with different medicines and various exercises. Sports rehabilitators possess much experience in treating micro and macro traumatic injuries. Physiotherapy should begin as soon as possible to avoid further damage to the injured muscle or joint.
Physiotherapy as a postoperative care
Physiotherapy as postoperative care is necessary for patients going through surgery, causing possible implications on their bones, muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments. For example, kinesiotherapy is a must for a patient going through hip replacement surgery. Postoperative surgery has three stages, the early recovery phase, strength and range of motion phase, and active restoration phase. Physical therapy specialists recommend using various tools and equipment at different stages.
Stroke rehabilitation and physiotherapy
Some people lose partial or complete movement after suffering from a stroke. Physiotherapy becomes necessary for such patients to cover muscle weakness and regain motion. The experts recommend 45 minutes of physiotherapy five days a week to cover the damages after stroke. Many muscles shorten their movement as a response to cope with the stroke. If not properly exercised, these muscles become weak and stunted as their fiber decreases.
The right kind of physiotherapy is the only option to regain this movement. Swimming pools, circuit training, frequent stretching, and intensive repetition of everyday activities are necessary to rebuild muscle fiber and strength.
Physiotherapy for cerebral palsy patients
It is a movement disorder that appears from early birth or childhood days having symptoms like poor coordination, tremors, stiff and weak muscles, vision issues, swallowing problems, and compromised speech and hearing. Different physiotherapy exercises are necessary for spastic, athetoid, and ataxic cerebral palsy patients. However, the time to start exercising may differ depending on the patients’ conditions. The experts recommend an early start because the older the patient is, the more complicated their treatment becomes.
Summary
To sum up, we can say that physiotherapy is a whole world of treatment that helps patients at different stages of their recovery. It is a must for patients above 65 years of age. Physical therapists work hard in coordination with the patients and their carers to normalize everyday activities.
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121338/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4403358/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6910682/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7117610/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5954814/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33308826/
Why CMRC?
CMRC Hospitalis the specialized provider for Long-term Care and rehabilitation services in Saudi Arabia. With one main facilities in Saudi Arabia, which are designed in a rehabilitation and long-term care hospital with a capacity of 66 beds.
CMRC provides an interdisciplinary clinical approach for Vent Rehabilitation Services which is customized for adults, adolescents, and children. The best rehabilitation services are not only our goal but our ultimate objective is to customize the care plan for each patient and make sure that the patient’s family and their members are integrated into the treatment plan.
When you joined Saudi Arabia hospital for any kind of our rehabilitation services or even for long-term care you will feel as if you are at #Your Second Home.
