Find The Relief You’ve Been Looking for with Physical Therapy
The World Health Organization estimates that in the United States, 149 million days of work are lost due to low back pain.
Many people suffer from lower back pain and have no idea how to find permanent relief. Dealing with this kind of pain impacts daily life and can take away the time you normally use to relax, work, and spend time with your family. Essentially, back pain can make it difficult to enjoy life as a whole. Not to mention that it can keep a person feeling highly irritable, depressed, and can contribute to a number of other health problems.
Lower back pain is the leading cause of activity limitation and work absence in most of the world, placing a high economic burden on people, households, communities, industry, and governments.
If you’re struggling with this kind of discomfort, there’s no doubt that you want help, and now you can have it! A licensed physical therapist will help direct you through the appropriate therapy treatments to get back to your everyday life without any discomfort. Please contact Walker Physical Therapy today to learn more!
How can physical therapy help with lower back pain?
Upon your first visit to our office, your physical therapist will ask you a variety of health-related questions about your medical history and lower back pain. Providing them with this knowledge will help your physical therapist provide you with the right recovery plan so that you can experience long-lasting benefits.
Your physical therapist will also perform a comprehensive examination of your body. Depending on your symptoms, your physical therapist may evaluate your flexibility, strength, balance, posture, coordination, blood pressure, and heart and breathing rates. They can also use their hands to examine and assess your back and surrounding areas to check for tightness. They can also visually test your mobility.
During your treatment plan, your physical therapist can also provide you with special exercises to do at home so that you can relieve discomfort, prevent re-injury, alleviate strain, and speed up your recovery time. They can also prescribe various devices or equipment that may help you heal, and spend time educating you on where the source of pain comes from, as well as pain relief techniques.
How can I benefit from PT treatments?
Active physical therapy is distinct from passive therapy, as it requires activities that the patient must do instead of treatments that the therapist performs on the patient. These exercises are typically used later in therapy, after the lower back pain has been reduced enough for you to perform exercises and stretches without feeling too much discomfort.
There are lots of exercises that your physical therapist can suggest. Many of them include targeted stretching, stability exercises, flexibility training, and strength training. Some of these exercises will boost your range of motion, and others will build up and restore muscles around affected areas to provide proper support for those parts of the body.
What can I expect from passive physical therapy?
Lower back pain can be so debilitating that you can’t be as active as you normally are. It can get in the way of literally everything! Because of this, it is imperative for a physical therapist to decrease your pain as much as possible so that you can start participating in your treatment.
These techniques and tools are commonly referred to as passive therapy because they are done to a patient by a physical therapist.
- Hydrotherapy
- Dry needling
- Iontophoresis
- Ultrasound
- Heat/ice packs
- Electrical stimulation, such as TENS Units
- Massage
- Manual therapies
Some of these methods (such as hot/cold packs and massage therapy) are used to improve blood flow and restore circulation to the affected area, thereby reducing pain and inflammation.
Physical therapists also often use electrical stimulation therapy. This is a non-invasive, painless treatment that delivers electrical waves through your nervous system to reduce muscle spasms and encourages your body to produce pain-relieving hormones.
Physical therapy also includes hydrotherapy treatment. This kind of treatment involves performing low-intensity movements in water to relieve pressure on muscles. Water allows you to move your joints without discomfort.
What else can I expect?
Physical therapy is a particular form of treatment for the management of disabilities and injuries. Your physical therapist is capable of alleviating all forms of pain, including back pain. Physical therapy facilitates recovery and is a perfect therapeutic choice for restoring range of motion and functional mobility. Our physical therapists are trained and experienced in conservative treatment strategies, including recovery of patients with neurological, cardiovascular, and orthopedic conditions.
Usually there are two key parts of each physical therapy program—passive physical therapy and active physical therapy—even though each patient receives a personalized treatment plan unique to their condition. Passive physical therapy lowers the pain levels of the patient and makes them more manageable. Active physical therapy requires exercises that patients undergo individually.
Contact us to get started
If you’re ready to alleviate (or even eliminate!) your pain, contact Walker Physical Therapy to learn more about how physical therapy can help you live a pain-free life.
Tags: physical activity, Natural Pain Relief, Natural Treatment, Opioids, physical health, physical therapists, Rehabilitation, aches and pains, joint pain, nutrition, physical therapy, chronic pain