A physical therapist is a licensed and extremely educated health care professional who treats and diagnoses people of all ages with health-related conditions or medical problems like chronic pain. They can treat injuries that limit the person’s ability to perform necessary daily functions or that limit the person’s ability to move. There are several goals a physical therapist Delray Beach tries to achieve with therapy, including:
- Increase the patient’s functional capacity to do daily tasks
- Increase the patient’s flexibility and movement
- Increase the patient’s endurance and strength
- Patient gets educated and informed about their condition, rehabilitation, and treatment to eventually be able to manage by themselves through lifestyle, exercise, activity pacing, and posture.
- Reduction in pain through pain management
When you combine all of these things, the final goal is to increase the quality of life for both the patient and the patient’s family. The physical therapist works with each person on specific goals and a pace that is unique to the patient, depending on their symptom presentation. They also consider the person’s functional capacity and their history. You can get an appointment with a physical therapist by:
- Make an appointment directly with the facility or therapist
- Pre and post-surgical evaluations
- Referral from a specialty team like rheumatology, orthopedics, or spinal surgeons
- Referral from your primary care physician or team
What Happens During a Physical Therapy Delray Beach Appointment
Just like a doctor, a physical therapist will look at your complete patient history, including your past surgical and medical history and your social history. This includes hobbies, your occupation, and your activities. They’ll ask questions about your pain level and pain management techniques to narrow down where your pain originates and how it’s impacting your daily life.
The therapist will combine all of this knowledge with a very thorough physical examination. During the exam, the therapist will assess your movement, posture, sensation, strength, and your ability to perform routine functional tasks. This information will help the therapist come up with a diagnosis and put together a treatment plan that they tailor specifically to your needs.
Physical therapists also use a host of different treatments for pain management to help reduce the amount of pain you’re in while increasing how involved you can be in your daily life. The options they give you will depend on their assessment findings. They could help with pain management by suggesting:
- Education – The therapist can educate you on healthy joints, how different parts of the body connect, movement patterns, and show you how specific movements cause pain. They’ll also explain why and how their treatment plan can help with pain management and reducing your symptoms.
- Exercise – They could prescribe an exercise regimen that includes flexibility and mobility exercises, strengthening exercises, and aerobic training. This treatment aspect starts as something as simple as finger exercises to more complex intense aerobic conditioning.
- Manual Therapy – This therapy uses joint mobilizations, massage, and trigger and myofascial point release techniques. It works on the joints, tendons, muscles, and ligaments.
- Passive Modalities – This includes the use of ice, heat, ultrasound, and electrical stimulation to the painful portion of your body.
- Posture or Movement Retraining – Altering your posture can restore your muscle strength. They can also help you change your walking or weight-bearing patterns to reduce the pain levels and make your functional movements better.
A skilled physical therapist will use a combination of the items we listed out to help you with pain management with the goal of returning to normal function. They could also suggest pilates or yoga for your treatment plan.
Depending on what is causing your pain, the severity levels, and your background history, you could have a physical therapist, a spine specialist, a neurologist, and rheumatologist, and an orthopedic surgeon you visit regularly. Normally, when you go to your primary care physician, they complete their assessment and refer you to a specialist doctor or a therapist for further treatment.
How Pain Management and Physical Therapy Delray Beach Work Together
There are different scenarios that outline how therapy and managing pain work together. For example, if you have an intolerable level of pain, an injection or medications could be the first treatment option your medical team will use to reduce your pain levels. This could help you attend your therapy session and stay comfortable. However, your doctor may recommend therapy first before any injections to get a handle on your pain levels.
For people who have chronic pain, injections, medications, and physical therapist Delray Beach all work together to help improve function, pain levels, and your overall quality of life. Surgery can be discussed after you’ve exhausted all other options. You have to remember that every person is different, and no symptom presentations are the same between patients. So, every treatment plan is unique.
There have been studies that showed that using this approach with multiple treatments at once time using specialties like orthopedic, nutrition, rheumatology, physical therapy Delray Beach, managing pain, and psychology ensure that you get the best possible outcomes with it comes to managing your pain levels and reducing them.
However, a critical part of your physical therapy Delray Beach program is promoting exercise and physical activity too. It can improve your symptoms of chronic pain and your severity levels, increase your quality of life, and increase your functional capacity. Never start or change your current activity levels without consulting your therapist or your primary care doctor.
Contact Florida Spine Associates Today
Since every patient needs a tailored treatment plan that includes effective strategies for managing pain, you want to start by contacting our staff at Florida Spine Associates. We’re happy to set up a consultation and get a plan in place to help improve your quality of life.