How is my treatment specific to my injury?
- Posted on October 7, 2011
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Different Tissues
As a physical therapist, it would be quite simple if every patient presented with the same tissue injury. In other words, if every injury involved the same type of tissue the rehab strategy would be very similar and very simple in process. Our bodies and the tissues that get injured however are not like that. Rarely are two injuries the same. Factors to consider are the type of tissue involved (disc, cartilage, tendon, muscle, and nerve). The rehabilitative strategies for each of these categories are quite different. For instance, if you have a tendonitis or a tendon failure occurs in your shoulder the choice to lift weights to strengthen the muscle tendon to the bone is a poor one. In this scenario the tendon will likely only further breakdown and inflame. For a number of reasons, the healing requirements for a tendon are much different than that of a muscle. Higher repetitions and lower stresses will be better able to facilitate a reparative and healing environment for the tendon. Once the tendon is healed, then you can apply higher level stresses to increase strength to the surrounding muscle groups.
Specific Strategies
The exercise and physical therapy strategies for cartilage and disc are also quite specific and different than muscle and for that matter tendon and ligament. The circulatory and blood supply to cartilage and disc tissue is marginal and in fact much of oxygen and nutritional support to these tissues comes from absorption from surrounding tissues. Creating environments of high stress and strain to these tissues during their time frame can as well be a bad choice. The physical therapist has to be very careful in the exercise strategies for these tissues. Protected ranges of movement and decreasing body weight stresses to these joints during exercise are quite helpful in allowing the specific tissue exercises required to facilitate a healing response to disc and cartilage.
Incorporating Equipment
Back-in-Action Rehabilitation incorporates exercise equipment such as pulleys, slant boards (Total Gym/Vigor Gym), and unweighting stations to decrease limb weight as well as body weight to the involved tissue. This allows the tissue that is irritated or trying to recover the opportunity to perform exercise in a manner that facilitates blood flow and repair to occur. In addition these exercise strategies also allow the patient to move and perform activities in functional patterns of movement. In other words lying on your back performing a shoulder exercise may not have a very effective cover over to the daily activities that a patient does multiple times in a day.
Special Care
The physical therapists at Back-in-Action Rehabilitation are trained to first identify the tissues that are at fault in a patient’s problem list and effectively incorporating exercise strategies to heal those tissues.
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