Four ways your PT can help you with your rehab

Returning from an injury or persistent pain is not always an easy process. This journey will come with frustrations and road bumps along the way.

Here are four ways we as physical therapists help guide you through this process, prepare you to get back to the activities you enjoy, and set you up for success going forward.

1.) Discuss Factors Contributing to Your Injury and Pain

No two injuries are the same and everyone has a different experience that has led them to seek out the help of a physical therapist. This is why during your first session we prioritize hearing your story and going through a full body assessment to better understand the factors that have contributed to your pain/injury. Discussing these factors can provide more clarity as to what is going on and what we can do to help with your specific situation.

2.) Come Up With a Plan 

Once we gain a better understanding of what is happening then we can come up with a plan to get you back to the activities you enjoy or the things you are unable to currently do. This plan will include initial interventions to reduce your symptoms and give you a general idea of how you will progress back to workouts, training, and other higher-level activities. This plan will be based on the initial assessment and the goals you have in mind. The plan needs to be logical and cannot be filled with random exercises that most people get with conventional therapy.

3.) Progress Through the Plan and Build Autonomy 

As you progress through your rehab we need to make sure we are bridging the gap between your initial interventions and the activities you would like to return to. This ensures you are as prepared as possible to return to the things you were unable to do previously. The way we go about this is by scaling up your exercise program in a way that preps you for whatever it is you’d like to perform. This can include mobility work, strength training exercises, return to run drills, etc. As you go through this process we encourage more autonomy and have you do more on your own to help you build up tools and skills to maintain what you've been working on in the future.

4.) Navigate Uncertainty 

One of the most important parts of this process is to help you troubleshoot and work through any difficulties that may arise as you go through your rehab. This process is not always linear where you continually improve. Sometimes flare-ups happen, symptoms increase, or returning to activities does not go as planned. As PTs, we help you work through these times and provide you with a better understanding of why things may not be going according to plan. While these times may be frustrating they are often a great opportunity to better understand what is going on and what needs to be emphasized going forward to get you back to where you want to be.

We prioritize these four ideas because we want the rehab process to be as clear as possible. We want to ensure you not only get back to your goals but can do more than you physically thought was possible.

Making sure you have a solid understanding of what is going on and what the plan is makes the process run a lot smoother and increases your chances of success. We want to make sure by the time you have completed your rehab process that you can be pain-free and doing all of the activities you enjoy the most!

If you’re experiencing chronic nagging injuries and want to know more about our approach then click here to schedule a discovery call.