Physiotherapy

What is Physiotherapy?

Physiotherapy is an intervention that can be used to help treat pain and address musculoskeletal conditions that influence your overall quality of life.

Whether it be joint pain or muscular pain, physical therapy is an intervention that can be tailored to meet your individual needs.

You work directly with a physiotherapist who is trained in how to implement therapeutic interventions directed at helping you achieve your movement-related goals.

Physiotherapy can also be used as a preventative intervention to help reduce your risk of injury as you age or in relation to sports participation.

How is Physiotherapy done?

Physiotherapy treatment will vary significantly depending on your exact condition or injury.

It may include elements of soft tissue stretching, myofascial release, and joint mobilization to help improve your overall mobility.

If your mobility is good, your physiotherapist may want to focus more on your movement control and strength surrounding an area to help improve your mechanics with particular motions.

Physiotherapists can also incorporate treatments that are directed at relaxing your nervous system in the case of chronic pain to help you better manage pain without opioids.

Some sessions may include a mix of massage-like techniques with strength-based exercises to help you achieve the maximum benefits.

You will be taught and then assigned exercises to perform at home to help your injured or painful tissues heal and restore functional movement patterns.

The duration of physiotherapy will vary based on the type of injury and your overall progress with physiotherapy.

Physiotherapy may also include a wide array of modalities including electrical stimulation, heat or ice, dry needling, kinesiotaping, blood flow restriction training, ultrasound, and cold laser.

You can visit with a physiotherapist even if you don’t have pain or injury if you would like a functional movement screen or sport-movement analysis to help you avoid injuries.

Many physiotherapists can also perform running analysis to help you enhance your running mechanics using software and video recordings to break down each phase of the movement.

What is the aim of Physiotherapy?

The aim of physiotherapy is to help you reduce your pain while also improving your overall capacity to do your daily activities.

Depending on your specific needs, the aim may be directed at improving your overall mobility or improving your strength and control with movement or some combination of the two.

Physiotherapy is also designed to not just treat the injury at hand, but to also prevent your pain or injury from coming back by helping to develop an individualized program that targets your specific needs.

Physiotherapy can also be used to help enhance your sports or athletic performance by use of specific interventions that help optimize movement patterns related to your sport.

Benefits of Physiotherapy

• Reduced acute or chronic pain
• Improved joint and soft tissue mobility
• Improved walking pattern and get rid of a limping pattern
• Improved strength
• Reduced arthritic pain
• Improved movement control with functional movement patterns
• Improved athletic performance
• Injury prevention through development of an individualized treatment plan
• Enhanced overall health
• Improved running mechanics with running analysis
• Increased relaxation of your nervous system
• Decreased reliance on prescription pain medication