29/10/2021
when should I see a Physio and what types of things can they help me with?
Here are 7 surprisingly common reasons to come in and see a physiotherapist to get the help you need:
1 – Chronic Back pain
Physiotherapists are able to use detailed physical examinations to not only identify what structures are affected, but also find what other factors have contributed to the onset of pain (eg, poor upper back or hip mobility, weak hip muscles, poor movement patterns, etc) and treat these factors to both alleviate your pain and help retrain your movement patterns to prevent it from coming back in the future.
2 – Headaches and Migraines
You shouldn’t put up with persistent headaches and just accept it as part of your normal life. Headaches and migraines can be debilitating and significantly affect your daily life. Physiotherapists can carefully take a detailed history and assess potential triggers for your headaches, helping to narrow down the potential sources, whether it be related to stiff upper neck joints, sustained neck positions during sitting or driving, or pain that starts in the shoulders/neck and travels upwards to the head. Physiotherapists can often provide treatment giving quick and effective results to ease the severity and frequency of headaches and migraines.
3 – Arthritis and Osteoarthritis
Arthritis is a very common condition causing pain, stiffness and inflammation of the joints. Arthritis is a big contributor to pain and disability in those affected, significantly impacting quality of life. Whilst currently not curable, there is lots of research supporting the use of tailored exercise programs to strengthen the muscles around the affected joints and improve mobility to ease symptoms and have a protective effect to decrease the rate of degeneration.
Physiotherapists can not only help you return to walking and climbing stairs more easily but can also aid you to return to sports and activities that you enjoy that will keep you living and feeling young!
4 – Women’s Health Problems
Issues like incontinence, pelvic floor problems, pelvic organ prolapse, pre-natal and post-natal matters, including abdominal tearing, can dramatically affect your quality of life and your confidence. Specifically, trained women’s health physiotherapists use treatment options and prescribe modified exercise programs to identify, re-train or strengthen those structures affected. This helps to improve your overall quality of life as well as to help prevent complications further down the line that may otherwise require surgical intervention.
5 – Neurological Issues
Brain injuries or peripheral nerve injuries can have a significant effect on your ability to do even the simplest of day to day tasks. Physiotherapists can assess what degree of functioning you have lost and help to re-train some of those skills to increase your independence and quality of life whether it be after a stroke, Bell’s Palsy or even para/quadriplegia.
6 – Sporting injuries
Whether you are a professional athlete or a weekend warrior, injuries are common amongst all levels of sport. Don’t let those injuries or persistent niggles get in the way of you achieving your goals or doing what you love to do!
No matter if your goal is to return to performing at your best, or just to get back out on the field enjoying time with friends, early intervention from a physiotherapist within a few days of the injury can ensure more rapid pain relief and a quicker return to activity. Not only that, but physiotherapists also look away from the injury to address the factors that may have contributed to it in the first place, giving you the tools to help prevent injuring yourself again in the future!
7 – Joint replacement surgery
If you get to the point of having a knee joint or hip joint replaced, chances are you were previously dealing with a significant amount of pain that was limiting your mobility and functioning. After surgery, early physiotherapy treatment (often just one day after surgery!) whilst you’re still in hospital helps to kick start your rehabilitation to get you back moving easily again! Ongoing physiotherapy once you are discharged from hospital is really important to continue improving your joint mobility and strength. This helps to get you back to your day to day tasks like walking and getting up and down stairs with ease, and to also get you back into activities and sports you thought you would have to give up!
Don’t sit back and just accept living pain, and don’t let pain take control of you! Go and see a physiotherapist early to start your recovery as quickly as possible and so that you can then get back to living young!
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