Physical therapy is a treatment approach that is widely used in several different healthcare arenas. You can find everyone from elite athletes to the elderly, to people living with chronic illness use physical therapy. The needs and uses for physical therapy can be limitless. Physical therapy can benefit people from all walks of life, and it can greatly improve their ability to function at the highest levels.
What is physical therapy?
Physical therapy is a form of patient care that aims to improve function and mobility, ease pain, and improve quality of life. Physical therapists can diagnose conditions and form treatment plans. In some countries, they can prescribe medicine, but medicine isn't usually part of a physical therapy treatment plan.
Instead, a treatment plan designed by a physical therapist can include:
- exercise – Rehabilitation exercise, strength training, aerobic exercise, or flexibility exercises
- stretching - either manual stretching by the physical therapist or instructions for how to stretch properly at home
- massage to reduce muscle pain and stiffness
- heat/cold therapy to reduce swelling and inflammation
- Electric stimulation to reduce pain
- Acoustic Pressure Wave therapy
- practice with using new assistive devices such as walkers or canes
- aquatic therapy
- Instrument-assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization using stainless steels tools
- Biomechanical taping such as Kinesiotape or Rocktape
Who is the Physical Therapy patient?
Physical therapy can help a wide variety of people, including:
- people learning to use an assistive device or who are adapting to an artificial limb
- people learning to control their bladder, bowels, or Pelvic floor
- people living with a chronic pain condition
- people recovering from a sports injury or who want to prevent one
- people wishing to avoid the need for surgery for a condition
- people rehabilitating after a stroke, accident, or surgery
- people who suffer Auto accidents, strains & sprains, or work injuries
A closer look at some examples of the benefits of physical therapy
1) Physical therapy can reduce joint pain and stiffness in people with osteoarthritis using aquatic physical therapy (https://academic.oup.com/ptj/article/87/1/32/2742115?login=true).
2) For critically ill patients, physical therapy can improve respiratory and pulmonary function, functional capacity, muscle strength (and minimize muscle loss), the incidence of myopathy, length of hospitalization, and even mortality (https://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbti/2019nahead/en_0103-507X-rbti-20190017.pdf). Here they used early progressive mobilization, standing, ambulation, and breathing techniques.
3) Physical therapy that includes the use of high levels of aerobic exercise and strength training can help with the management of cerebral palsy (https://academic.oup.com/ptj/article/86/11/1534/2805086?login=true).
4) Physical therapy can even help people with schizophrenia. Aerobic, strength, and yoga training have been shown to reduce psychiatric symptoms, anxiety, distress, and improve health-related quality of life. Aerobic exercise can improve short-term memory and progressive muscle relaxation can reduce anxiety and distress (https://academic.oup.com/ptj/article/92/1/11/2735106).
Of course, these examples are just a small selection of the variety of conditions that physical therapy can help with, but they give you an idea of the power of the approach and how much it can improve people's lives.
Physical therapy is becoming recognized as an important part of patient care for a wider range of diseases and disorders, beyond just recovery after injuries or surgery. As more and more evidence comes out about the impact that physical activity can have on our bodies and how they are able to respond to the challenges they face, physical therapy is at the forefront of the changing approach to treatment.