What Are the Different In-Office Physical Therapy Techniques?
Pain in the joints and muscles limits your ability to move around to carry out normal tasks. You may be looking for an option to treat your pain without invasive treatment. Therefore, physical therapy, Charleston can be a good choice if you want to improve normal functioning in your joints while reducing pain. Physical therapy involves different techniques that aim to help you in recovery and may even eliminate the need for surgery in some cases. The following discussion will highlight how different techniques work to improve functionality.
Light Therapy
The treatment uses short light wavelengths that penetrate your body tissue to promote tissue healing, pain reduction, and swelling. Your doctor can transmit a low laser light wave to penetrate deeper into your skin, thus optimizing your immune response to get anti-inflammatory effects. Usually, your physical therapist may recommend laser light therapy to treat arthritis, muscle strains, fractures, and pain. Your doctor will place a wand on your affected skin area and hold it for some time, depending on the condition. Treatment may last for less than five minutes and is painless. You may need the treatment up to 3 times a week as you continue to notice improved function and pain relief in the injured area.
Heat and Cold Therapy
Your doctor may recommend heat and cold therapy to relieve muscle and joint damage pain. During cold therapy treatment, blood flow to your injured area will reduce, thus slowing down inflammation, swelling, and tissue damage. Also, cold therapy numbs your soreness to slow down pain signals to the brain. You can use cold therapy options like ice on a swollen joint within 48 hours after an injury. However, you should not directly apply ice to your skin. Heat therapy, on the other hand, involves heat application to an inflamed area to dilate blood vessels, thus promoting blood flow to relax tightened muscles. You can apply heat for up to 20 minutes, three times a day, at least to relieve your symptoms. Heat therapy can relieve osteoarthritis, sprains, tendinitis, and spasms from neck and back injuries.
Electrotherapy
You can get pain relief from treatments using electricity. Electrotherapy improves circulation, strengthens muscles, repairs tissues, and causes improved physical functioning. During electrotherapy, your doctor will attach electrodes to your skin and turn on a unit that sends an electric current through the electrode. Your doctor can adjust the amount of stimulation during treatment. You will have electrotherapy alongside your other treatments to alleviate pain.
Chiropractic Care
Treatment with chiropractic care aims to provide pain relief while realigning your spine. Your doctor will focus on back, neck, and joint pain in your legs and arms. During chiropractic care, your doctor will adjust and manipulate the affected area to help the body heal. You can choose chiropractic care if you want a minimally invasive treatment that gives your body a chance to heal.
Physical therapy has many benefits, including reduced pain and inflammation, improved function, reduced medication need, and even a surgical procedure. Additionally, you have a chance at a quicker recovery, so you can function normally without needing to rely on a device. Depending on your diagnosis and injury sustained, you can choose from the different physical therapy techniques. Most minimally invasive techniques can treat many conditions to reduce pain and manage discomfort. With physical therapy, you can attain the highest level of motion needed to live a quality life.