PHYSIOTHERAPY
Introduction
Physiotherapy deals with restoring and maintaining functional movement , reducing pain and promoting health in individuals. Physiotherapist help people affected by injury, illness or disability through movement , exercise , manual therapy ,education and advice .
Benefits Of Physiotherapy
1. Strengthens the muscular support around the joints.
2. Prevents the joints from “freezing up” and improves and maintains joint mobility.
3. Guidance on best way to move from one position to another and correct postures while standing or sitting.
4. Due to mobility exercises the patient does not tend to put on weight neither do their limbs get stiff.
5. Physical therapists can provide mechanical support devices such as splints ,canes, walkers and braces .These devices can be helpful in reducing stress on the joints.
Types:
1) Exercise Therapy
2) Electro Therapy
1) Exercise Therapy
Physical therapy nearly always involves exercise of some kind that is specially designed for your injury, illness, condition or to help prevent future health problems.
Exercise is anything you do in addition to your regularly daily activity that will improve your flexibility, strength, coordination or endurance. It even includes changing how you do your regular activities to give you some health benefits. For example, if you park a little farther away from the door of the grocery store, the extra distance you walk is exercise .Exercise can include- Relaxation –It is a technique to calm themselves thereby decreasing anxiety and controlling arousal. For example :
– Breathing exercise
-Yoga/Meditation
-Body positioning and posture maintenance- Movement- Range of movement exercises are given for a specific joint where there is a decreased amount of movement. These exercises can be assisted by gravity, assisted by yourself (ex. The movement is performed to the achievable range, and then additional pressure is applied by another part of the body such as your hands to achieve a greater range),assisted by another person and assisted by an external machine.
Range of movement exercise can:
-increase movement at a joint
-increase the function of a joint and the whole limb
-increase independence
-decrease pain
-improve and maintain joint integrity- Stretching- Stretching exercises encourage lengthening of your muscles and their associated tendons to normal your muscle length tension ratio to reduce stress on joints.
- Core stability – to strengthen the muscles of your trunk (your back and abdomen) and hips.
- Manual Therapy- It includes hands- on therapy such as joint mobilization, passive stretching, soft tissue massage, trigger point therapy, postural correction and gait and balance retraining.
2) Electrotherapy
It is use to assist pain reduction and the natural healing response via an increase in energy (electrical, sound ,light, magnetic, temperature) .Electrical modalities include:
- Ultrasound: It provides a deep heat to increase blood flow and make the cell wall more permeable which allows improved exchange across the cell membrane .The warmth generated by ultrasound can help relax muscles and ease pain.
- TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation): It stimulates your nerves via an electrical current through your skin. It assist you in modest short term pain relief. The use of a TENS machine helps in pain management .Pain is thought to be controlled by TENS in one of two ways
- Sensory Level Stimulation – The Gate Control theory of pain means that the electrical input of the Tens machine interferes with the transmission of pain signals ,by blocking the neural “gate” through which the pain travels.
- Motor Level Stimulation – The goal of motor level stimulation is to cause the release of the body’s own opiate like substances to achieve pain relief.
- Traction: it help to decrease back and neck pain and pain radiating into a leg or arm.Traction can relieve pressure on spinal nerve roots due to degenerative disc disease, herniated discs or spinal stenosis. lumbar traction is sometimes called spinal decompression therapy.
- Laser: Laser therapy works by creating a concentrated beam of light radiation onto the area that requires treatment.This promotes the healing of the targeted tissue as well as reducing pain,inflammation and swelling.It can also help in the physical breakdown of thickened scar tissue after an operation.
- IFT ( Interferential therapy) :The principle of IFT is to pass two Medium Frequency Alternating Currents which are slightly out of phase ,through the tissues ,where the currents intersect to produce a low frequency effect .Main clinical applications are:
-pain relief
-muscle stimulation
-increased local blood flow
-reduction of edema