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Whether you’re battling pain or injury, a physical therapy plan will help reduce symptoms and speed recovery. It may take time and effort, but sticking to a PT’s schedule will benefit you in the long run.
PTs specialize in how the body moves and understand how different systems impact movement. This allows them to diagnose and treat a wide range of health conditions.
Physical Therapists (PTs)
A physical therapist can help people with a wide range of injuries and illnesses. They use treatment techniques to promote mobility and relieve pain. PTs also educate patients on how to prevent movement problems from recurring.
During their training, aspiring PTs take courses on anatomy, neuroscience, kinesiology, and biology to learn the fundamentals of human movement. They also participate in supervised clinical experience to develop their skills. Many PT programs have specific application requirements, including GPA, letters of recommendation, and observation hours. To streamline the process, applicants can use a centralized application service to apply to multiple programs.
When selecting a program, it is important to consider the overall educational experience and location of the school. The average DPT program lasts three years, but some schools have compressed academic requirements into a shorter period. This could reduce your total cost of education and allow you to start working sooner.
In addition to ensuring their students receive an outstanding education, top PT programs strive to foster a compassion for clients and patients. PTs must be comfortable guiding clients through exercises and therapy techniques while helping them overcome their frustrations and fears. This requires a high level of empathy and communication, especially when treating trauma victims. They must also inspire their patients to achieve their goals and stay motivated.
Physical Therapy in Children
As children develop and grow, they may experience problems with their movement or have injuries that impact their ability to move. This is where pediatric physical therapy comes in.
Whether a child is born with an injury or is treated for one, a physical therapist can help them to improve their mobility and build up their strength, flexibility, balance, and coordination. They can also help them with any pain or discomfort they might have.
PTs use hands on “manual” stretching and massage techniques to ease stiff muscles and joints, and to relax them. They can also perform joint mobilization, a series of movements to ease tightness or swelling in the joints.
In addition, PTs can teach kids and their families how to use assistive devices like wheelchairs or braces, and how to get the most out of their exercise routine at home. They can also help a child and their family with any mobility issues that are caused by a disease or condition, such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, and more.
A PT will evaluate your child’s movement abilities, including their range of motion, flexibility, strength, balance and coordination, and how their muscle tone is. They will then work with you to develop a treatment plan that is best for your child. This may include recommendations for orthotics or custom wheelchair seat systems.
Physical Therapy in Oncology and Palliative Care
In palliative care settings, physical therapy can help people with cancer and other chronic diseases to improve their quality of life. This includes relieving pain, decreasing fatigue, improving mobility, and assisting with balance problems and falls.
PTs in palliative care often have to work with a variety of other healthcare professionals, including nurses, doctors, social workers and chaplains. This interprofessional collaboration requires excellent communication and coordination of care to ensure that the patient’s goals are met.
A major part of palliative physical therapy is exercise. The therapist will teach the patient to perform exercises that will improve their mobility, coordination and muscle strength. These exercises will only be beneficial if the patient does them regularly at home too.
Other treatments include pain relief using techniques such as TENS, heat, massage and acupuncture. In some cases, a therapist may use passive movements of the body, such as bed-bound patients being moved from chair to bed and back again.
In addition, the therapist will educate patients and their family on how to care for themselves at home between PT sessions. This includes teaching the patient to use adaptive equipment or assistive devices as needed. The PT will also discuss strategies for managing symptoms at home, such as using pain medications and following the care plan for the patient’s illness.
Physical Therapy in the Workplace
Sustaining a workplace injury can be disruptive and expensive for an individual. The good news is that physical therapists can help alleviate pain, improve movement, reduce inflammation and increase strength and endurance to prevent future injuries from occurring.
PTs are trained to provide a wide variety of interventions in the occupational health setting including: onsite injury prevention programs, ergonomic assessments/education, return to work programs and manual intervention. The most important aspect of a physical therapist’s role in the workplace is prevention of work-related injuries.
The authors suggest that this can be achieved through a combination of interventions that treat employees as industrial athletes. This includes incorporating a pre-work stretching routine, education on proper body mechanics and training to avoid awkward postures. Additionally, a physiotherapist can perform an ergonomic assessment on an employee by observing them as they do their job and note any awkward movements or positions that could be modified to make the work more energy efficient.
Lastly, work conditioning is an exercise-based program that allows injured workers to practice performing their jobs in a controlled environment while receiving PT supervision. The program will usually involve a therapist leading an initial evaluation session where they will set up the program and may implement pain relief modalities, such as TENS, to ease discomfort during the exercise. The program then progresses to a self-driven, worker-led program, where the therapist will monitor and adjust the program as needed.